How to Make a Mini Prayer Binder

I am really bad at remembering things unless I write them down. I have reminders on my phone and a planner that I am really reliant on. This forgetfulness includes prayer requests. To counter this, I started a little prayer notebook to keep track of various intentions.

Unfortunately, the binding couldn’t hold up in my purse so I decided to make a new one.

In this post, I’m going to share how I made mine. Don’t feel like you need to go out and buy a bunch of supplies. A prayer intention binder can be as simple or complex as you want.

Supplies

All you really need is something to write in and something to write on. If you’re looking to make one that’s a little more colorful, here’s what I used.

Writing Utensils

Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pens
- I used these to write headers on each prayer card.
- all the fanciness with a much lower cost
- easy to use
- bright colors
Colored Pencils
- I used these to color some of my section pages.
- I have these because I like using adult coloring books, but you should just use what you have around the house or go to the dollar store.
Sharpie: I used these to write on the plastic sections.
Triplus Fineliner Pen (not shown below)
- I used these to outline the images on my section pages and to write on the Post-it tabs.
- I love these pens for writing all the time. I know it’s silly to get excited about pens, but these are awesome.
Pen: I used this to write my prayer intentions.
Pencil: I used these to trace images onto my section pages…and by me, I mean my husband who is a much better tracer than I.

Organizational Tools

Post-it Tabs
- I’m a dork who loves organization. These help me break my prayer intentions into even smaller sections.
- These are definitely optional.
Hole-punched Index Cards
- The binders I list below come with 50 index cards a piece so you probably won’t need these.
- These are pretty good, but slightly lower quality than what comes with the binders. They are thinner and the pens bleed more.
Index Card Binder
- This is what I used for my prayer binder.
- There are images below.

Nice, plastic binder

inside view with a plastic pocket

2 section dividers

inside view

Instructions

You should put whatever will be useful to you in your prayer binder, but this is what I included.

People

This is the first section. I used Post-it tabs to break it into family, friends, acquaintances, and souls.

Each of my family members got an individual card, and I have a card for my extended family.

A number of my friends have an individual card in my prayer binder.

In the acquaintances section, I have several lists.

priests
the students in my faith formation class
the prisoners I write
married and engaged couples
atheists and agnostics
former (practicing) Catholics
abortion advocates
co-workers
people who post prayer requests online

Souls is for people who have passed away.

World

I wrote “WORLD” on the first plastic section in Sharpie.

This only had two smaller sections: long-term and short-term.

Short-term is a list of intentions.

Long-term has topics including:

Abortion
Peace
Religious Freedom & Christian Unity
Culture of Life
Value of Family

Prayers

This is a new plastic section. I still need to add to it. Right now, I have acts of love, faith, hope, charity, and contrition. I also have a morning offering and the Angelus.