My Daily Planner

Book blocks made from pharma inserts, waiting to be cased in.

Here's some more background on those miniature books I mentioned in the last post. Several months back, I found a 7-compartment weekly pill organizer in the drugstore. There was just something about the size of it—slightly larger than usual—that screamed "art supply."

I decided to make little books that look like day planners, one for each compartment. The pages come from copies of the pharmaceutical inserts from my meds. They are 7/8" x 1-5/8".

I've been trying to find a suitable covering material for the little books. I'd been thinking of using Tyvek, but in the end it didn't look "day planner" enough. Mostly, the tiny lettering just didn't look right no matter how I tried to affix it to the Tyvek. I opted, instead, for inkjet prints on paper.  

I made a solid black background and used white lettering. But then the coated inkjet paper scratches so easily and the texture wasn't quite right--what to do?  I decided, as a protective gesture, to coat the papers with beeswax, something new for me. It turned out that the coating not only offers scratch resistance, but the texture of the wax rubbed into the paper definitely suggests "day planner" to me. I was quite pleased with the result. They are smooth and glossy and not "waxy" at all (unfortunately, the picture doesn't convey this very well).

I made the first one last night and eagerly showed my husband, who said, "Wow, a bible--how funny!" 

Bible?! 

I had to confess, it did look more "bible" than "day planner." 

At any rate, I can recommend wax-coating inkjet printouts. I'll explain a little bit more about my process for coating them in the next post.

A finished "day planner"