Personalized datebook

Welcoming a new year can be a little disheartening as you recall all the things you resolved to do and never got done. This year, be inspired every day with a beautiful datebook.

Tailor the datebook to your personal style. Fill it with heartwarming photographs and picturesque paintings, encouraging quotes and brilliant colours, whatever brightens your mood and inspires you to act. We've created a few pages to help get the creativity flowing.

You will need:
Thick photo paper or cardstock
Cardboard
Colour printer
Scissors
Ribbon, fabric-wrapped elastic or binder rings

Instructions:
Step 1: Creating a template
While you can create the datebook in a photo-editing or word-processing program, we used Microsoft Publisher because it offers a variety of templates and colour schemes to work with, saving us time from fiddling with boxes and coordinating hues.

• Open the program and click on "Publications for Print."
• Select "Postcards" > "Invitations" > "Five Block Invitation."
• Delete the graphics and change the size of the boxes if desired by clicking and dragging. You can do the same with the textboxes.
• Highlight the text, type your own words, such as the month in the top box, the day and date in each vertical box and a quote in the bottom box. You can also add important events like your anniversary or child's birthday.

Step 2: Adding personality
You can play with the font, colour and images to shape the look of your datebook.
• To change the font and type size, use the drop-down menus on the toolbar.
• To add a picture, go to "Insert" > "Picture", then select "From File" (for photos) or "Clip Art".
• To pick new coordinating colours, click on "Color Schemes" in the left-hand menu. You can select from the 60-plus schemes available or customize your own.