Custom Index Tab Dividers

I’m pretty embarrassed that it took me so long to realize that what my planner/bullet journal hybrid really needed was a set of custom index tab dividers.

Embarrassed for two reasons –

1) I consider myself a pretty organized person, and the key to organization is everything needs a place, and labeling the places is most of the fun!

and

2) I work at a company that specializes in index tabs, binders and presentation folders.

I think the saying is the cobbler’s children have no shoes?

Anyway, once I realized I wanted tab dividers, I had two choices – have someone at work make them for me the actual professional way, or make them myself.

Not wanting to waste a work favor, I decided to make my own.

Which brought me to two more choices – cut them by hand or use my Silhouette Cameo?

You are probably thinking I’d do them with the Cameo. And you are wrong. I only need a few, and they are all straight cuts. This would actually be faster doing them with an X-acto knife. If I were going to make a set with fancier tab shapes, then I would definitely go with the Cameo. And I bet I will, once I settle on the number and wording I really want to stick with.

But here’s how to make a super simple set of index tab dividers, no special machines or punches required. OK – a 3-hole punch is needed at the end, but I’m not counting that one 😉 .

There’s a little math required to figure out the basic layout of a index tab. You take the sheet size (in this case, my binder holds a half sheet which is 8.5″ tall and 5.5″ wide) and then add a half-inch to the side where the tabs are going to go.

Next, determine how many tabs you want, and divide that height by that number. I wanted two sets of four tabs each. I could have done one set of eight tabs, but then the tabs themselves are kind of small and I want type large enough to read without my reading glasses.

Then I added in my type and design elements and crop marks. I extended my background and tab colored areas beyond the sheet to give me a little room for when I cut. That extra area is called the bleed in printing terms. I also made life a little easier for myself by adding some extra marks for where to cut the tabs.

I printed my sheets on white 110# index stock. I got all fancy and printed them double sided, which is tricky if your printer doesn’t duplex. And its double tricky in index tab land because you have to flip the tab titles on the back sheet to line up correctly.

Once they were printed, I used a straight edge and a sharp X-acto and cut the sheets and tabs out using my marks.

Once all of them were cut, I punched them using a 3-hole punch, and put them to work in my planning binder.

Pin this so you can find it later when you want to make your own custom index tab dividers!

I’ll be linking this post up to these great link up parties.