Have It Both Ways Address Book

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  Step 1

  Open up a blank presentation in PowerPoint. If the blank slide in front of you isn't divided into four sections or quadrants, click on the View menu and select "Guides."

  I used PowerPoint because of the Guides feature and because it is easy to manipulate text boxes in that program.

• Step 2

  Add the names, addresses, and birthdays.

  I had two text boxes per quadrant - one with the name and address and one with the birthday(s) of everyone at that address whom I wanted to send birthday cards to.

  I sorted by number of folks, not alphabetically. This is because for single people, you'll print two pages (one for the alphabetized section and one for whatever month his or her birthday is in) while for a family of four, you'll print five copies. It made sense to put families/individuals on the same page who were going to be printed out the same number of times.

  Try not to get your text boxes to close to the left side of their respective quadrants because you don't want to lose information when you punch out holes for the book rings to go through.

• Step 3

  Print your PowerPoint slides. You can use blan-on-one side paper. As per above, you'll need at least two for every entry, more if you put more than one person's birthday on an entry.

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  Step 4

  Next you are going to tear the paper into four equal rectangles.

  Fold it in half. (Either direction is fine.) Crease it firmly.

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  Step 5

  Tear the page in half.

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  Step 6

  Now tear the halves in half. You now have four equally sized pages.

  Repeat until all the pages are torn. You can use a paper cutter if you prefer, or you can do what I did and do this while watching TV, chatting on the phone, and generally relaxing.

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  Step 7

  Now make two templates out of heavy-duty cardstock or light weight cardboard.

  The smaller one should be the same dimensions as the pages. You will use it for marking where you are going to punch the holes for the book binder rings.

  The larger one will be for the front cover, the back cover, and the month dividers. Because it is slightly larger than the size of the pages, it will help keep the edges of the pages from getting messed up.

  Make the smaller one first. You will save yourself lots of pain and suffering if the holes are equidistant from the edges so the template is the same no matter which side is facing up.

  Use the smaller one to mark where the holes go on the big one. This way everything will line up when it is time to put the book rings in place.

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  Step 8

  Use the smaller template to mark two holes on the left side of each page. (I do this on the back side where mistakes won't show.)

  Punch out the holes with a paper punch.

  You'll wonder why you opted to include so many people, since this takes awhile!

  You may want to take a break and do step 9, especially if you are painting your covers, so that the paint will be dry when you are ready to assemble your book.

• Step 9

  Figure out how many dividers you want. If you are using just one cereal box or a small book ring, you may want to skip the month dividers and just make a front cover, a back cover, and a divider between alphabetized and by birthday. Otherwise, decorate 14 cards, 12 for the months and 2 more for the covers.

  I painted a big sheet of cardstock and then used the larger template to cut out rectangles wherever I liked.

• Step 10

  Once you have your cardstock/cereal box covers and divider(s), use the larger template to mark them on the back where you are going to punch the holes.

  Then punch the holes carefully so that everything will line up.

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  Step 11

  Alphabetize half the pages by last name.

  Sort the remaining pages by month, then day of the month.

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  Step 12

  Add the pages onto the book rings and you are done!

  Because the book rings snap open and closed, you can easily add or remove pages.

  Now I'm going to make a card for my Aunt Mary, since I've just realized that her birthday is next week!

  Thanks for reading - Enjoy!

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