This Classic Happy Planner Hole Punch Is a Game Changer for Both Productivity and Cost Savings!
If you want to be able to add almost ANY paper to your Happy Planner, you NEED Happy Planner’s Create 365 paper punch! The punch is an outstanding investment, because it will save you a small fortune on your planner supplies. It will pay for itself if you are a hardcore planner user.
If you use the Happy Planner or any comparable discbound planner system, you’ll want to consider making a small upfront investment in the Classic Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch in order to maximize your productivity and minimize the amount of money you’ll spend on buying planner refill pages.
How is that possible, you might ask? What exactly does this punch do for you that allows you to be more productive or save more money on your planner supplies?
Let me explain:
Be More Productive by Increasing Your Options for Planner Page Layouts
Me and My Big Ideas, the manufacturer of the Happy Planner, makes a staggering variety of planner refill pages, accessories, calendar extension packs and filler paper available. For many planner users, these off-the-shelf accessories are adequate for customizing their planners to perfection.
But, there are limitations on the designs that are available.
For example, I have looked at every planner and extension pack available from the stores that sell Happy Planners, and I have yet to find a planner layout that is ideal for freelance writers to use for organizing their client lists, website passwords and project lists.
Since I have a Happy Planner hole punch that creates the discbound page edges, I can add virtually any paper to my planner. So I am working on designing my own perfect planner layout that I can print out as often as I need. I can simply print the page, punch it with this punch and add the page to my planner in the spot where I need it.
This punch also allows me to download other designers’ planner bundles and layouts to use for further customizing my planner.
So if you’ve ever spent literally hours at the store or online, looking through all the available planner layouts and stressing out because none of them offer you quite the right layout design, this system is going to solve that problem for you easily. You now have access to the tools you need for customizing your planner to do exactly what you need it to do.
How This Happy Planner Hole Punch Saves You Money on Planner Supplies
If you have a classic-sized Happy Planner, at current pricing, you typically spend around $8-9 for 40 sheets of filler paper to use in your Happy Planner. On one hand, I think this cost is reasonable for what you get — which is high-quality paper that resists bleed-through if you write on it with markers or highlighters.
But, on the other hand, if you need to use a lot of paper, you’ll spend a fortune at these prices.
If you’re color coding your planner using highlighters and markers, I recommend just buying the branded Happy Planner pages.
But if you’ll be writing on your pages with ordinary pencil or ballpoint pen, you can save some cash by using a lesser quality paper and punching the discbound edge yourself so you can add it to your planner. This isn’t an option when you stick to buying only the branded Happy Planner refills and extension packs.
This punch also allows you to make use of paper that might go to waste otherwise. For example, I have some decades-old scrapbooking paper that I am not ever going to use in my scrapbooks and memory albums. I’m going to re-purpose that old paper and use it in my planner. It’s possible for me to do so because I can use the Classic Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch and punch the edges of the papers to make them compatible with the Happy Planner.
So, come to think of it, that’s one more selling point for this punch: The punch is an environmentally friendly solution that can help to keep your old, unwanted papers out of the landfill. They don’t have to go to waste, because if you can use them in your planner, this punch will give you the means to actually make it happen.
This Hole Punch Is Easy to Use
Update 9-12-2024 When I originally posted this review, I wrote, “I just got this punch a few days ago. So far I’ve used it to punch a few dozen pages. So far so good! It works exactly as expected and is extremely easy to use.”
I can now say that I’ve used it to punch hundreds of pages, and it is still going strong.
Here are a couple of pictures showing you planner layouts I made using this punch to punch through patterned scrapbooking paper:
My punch is going to get has been getting hardcore, consistent use — and I have yet to experience any problems with it. It has been working like a champ.
Punch All 9 Holes at Once
With this punch, you can easily punch all 9 of the holes you need for adding your pages into your Happy Planner or most other similarly-sized discbound planners. You don’t have to mess around with punching each hole individually or worrying about getting the spacing correct. The punch will automatically give you the correct spacing. YAY!! And you’ll save a lot of time using this punch as compared against other alternatives that require you to line up each hole before you punch.
You’ll also probably avoid wasting the amount of paper you’d waste with alternatives that require you to line up each hole before punching. With the Classic Happy Planner 9-hole punch, I haven’t yet wasted any paper or made any mistakes in my punching, because this punch is fairly dummy-proof to use.
Cons
There aren’t many downsides that I’ve experienced with this punch, and overall, I am highly enthusiastic about it. I think it offers you an outstanding value for the money you’ll spend on it. That said, I’d be a bad reviewer if I didn’t mention the few downsides I noticed with this punch:
- This punch only works with the Classic, Mini and Smaller sized Happy Planners. It DOES NOT work with the Big Happy Planners. If you want to create your own pages for the Big Happy Planner, you’ll have to buy the larger sized Happy Planner Punch, which has 12 holes — or, possibly, one of the alternatives mentioned below.
- Even this smaller-sized 9-Hole punch is big and really heavy. It will take up a lot of space in your craft supplies. This might not be a huge issue for you if you’re living in a sizable home. If you’re, for example, a New York City apartment dweller or a full-time RVer, or anyone who lives in a tiny space, you might want to consider some of the available alternatives before you purchase this punch (Scroll down to find suggestions for possible alternatives). I happen to live in a studio-sized condo at the moment, and I’m OK with the amount of space this punch takes up — but I’m going to have to get rid of some other less-used punches so I have space to store this one. So I do think it’s totally worth the space investment, but your mileage may vary.
- This punch does not cut through anything heavier than cardstock, so you cannot use it for punching laminated papers to make planner covers. If you’re hoping to use your hole punch to make yourself new planner covers or very thick dividers, see below for suggested alternatives to this punch.
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The Happy Planner Hole Punch vs the Crop-A-Dile Disc Power Punch
There are bunches of interesting alternatives to this Happy Planner hole punch. Which one you’d want would depend on what you’re hoping to accomplish with your planner.
I was most interested in having an alternative that would allow me to create my own covers for the Happy Planner.
Beyond that, I wanted to be able to punch through a single “mushroom” at times, because I often stick Happy Planner stickers or stamped images in a position that covers part of the discbound edge. So I thought it would be ideal to have a solution for punching through just the part of the sticker or stamped image that covers up the edge, without having to punch the entire page.
Happy Planner’s Create 365 / Classic 9-Hole punch doesn’t allow me to do either of these things. So I wanted to buy another punch that would.
We R Memory Keepers We R Makers makes their own discbound planner rings and accessories available. One of their tools in this line is the Crop-A-Dile disc punch. The Crop-A-Dile tool is the one you’d want to consider owning for punching through thick surfaces like chipboard, SOME brands of acrylic or possibly even a laminated cover (I haven’t personally tested it on this type of material so can’t guarantee it will work, but I think it might).
I decided to buy the Crop-A-Dile Disc Power Punch in addition to the Classic Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch because I wanted to have this extra functionality that the Happy Planner punch does not provide.
I used to be on the design team for Clear Scraps, a USA-based manufacturer of clear acrylic albums, chipboard albums and related paper crafts accessories. The ladies at Clear Scraps recommended the Crop-A-Dile line of tools to me because those are the best tools that they knew of for punching through Clear Scraps acrylic and chipboard album pages. I didn’t have a Crop-A-Dile at the time, but most of my design team colleagues did, and they affirmed that the tool works really well for punching through hefty materials. I finally ordered my own Crop-A-Dile hole punch (updated 7-20-2023 When I originally posted this review, I didn’t own the Crop-a-Dile Disc Power Punch. Now I do; I bought it, use it frequently, and highly recommend it.)
If you’re short on space, this is one of the planner punch solutions you might want to consider, depending on your needs. The Crop-A-Dile is also a big, heavy punch that will take up a considerable amount of space in your craft supplies stash — but in this case, the upside is that it is more versatile than the Happy Planner 9-Hole punch is. You could use it for punching pages to put in the BIG Happy Planners in addition to the Classic and Mini sized Happy Planners. You can also obviously use it to cut through a broader variety of materials than the Happy Planner 9-Hole punch does. So if you’re looking to buy just one punch that could help you customize all sizes of Happy Planners or other discbound planners, the Crop-A-Dile Disc Punch might be a higher priority purchase for you than the Happy Planner 9-Hole punch would be.
The downside, though, is that, with the Crop-A-Dile Disc Punch, you’d have to spend more time lining up punches and punching your binding holes, because you can only punch one hole at a time with this punch. It does have a guide that’s supposed to help you with that, but even so, getting good results with the Crop-A-Dile disc punch is going to take you more time than getting good results with the Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch.
Other Possible Alternatives to the Happy Planner Discbound Hole Punch
The Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch has fixed spacing between the holes. If you’re interested in having a tool that offers you more flexibility, you might prefer to have the Crop-A-Dile discbound punch or one of the other options that allows for more flexible placement of the mushroom-shaped holes.
The following are some alternatives I’m aware of.
Adjustable Planner Punch Board by Maggie Holmes
We R Memory Keepers Punch Board
Tul Punch
Office Depot manufactures a line of pens and discbound planners that carry the Tul brand name. One of the accessories for this line is the Tul discbound punch. It’s possible to use this punch to punch discbound page edges that will work with your Happy Planner.
Arc Punch
Staples also manufactures their own line of discbound planners; this is known as the Arc system. There is an Arc punch available that you can use for punching discbound page edges that will work with your Happy Planner.
Where to Buy the Classic Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch for Making Discbound Planner Pages
There are usually multiple places you can buy the Classic Happy Planner 9-Hole Punch for making new pages for your Happy Planner. However, as of 9-12-2024, I just checked several suppliers, and Amazon is the only one who has it in stock right now. So I recommend checking there first.
More Planner Ideas and Supplies:
Over to You:
Have you tried using the Create 365 Classic 9-Hole Punch from the Happy Planner collection by Me & My Big Ideas? If so, how did you like using it? How have your punched planner layouts and pages been turning out so far? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
By Amy Solovay
About Your Product Reviewer: Amy Solovay is a content creator and educator who holds a bachelor’s degree with a studio art minor; she has also earned a separate degree in textile design. Amy has been a hardcore planner user since her college days, and she still enjoys planning all these years later. However, she didn’t discover discbound planners until the 2020s, and they have been a huge game changer for her productivity.
Beyond that, Amy enjoys introducing other planner addicts and crafters to the best new craft supplies, and she also loves helping crafters learn new techniques for making the most of the craft supplies they buy.
As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles.
Nowadays, Amy uses online platforms to teach digital courses to craft pattern designers, content creators and influencers all over the world. If you’re an artist, crafter or DIY enthusiast who is interested in earning income from your creative work, you’re invited to visit Crafterprise.com to learn more about monetizing the arts, craft(s) and / or DIY projects you do.
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This page was last updated on 9-12-2024.