I thought I’d share a cute and easy calendar project with you to kick off 2011. This is a great project to use as a personal keepsake, or to use as a gift for family or friends. I started off with an 8×8 Keepsake Calendar by SRM Press (http://www.shopatron.com/products/category/Calendar+Theme/3258.0.1.1.11382.71003.0.0.0). They come with an alterable front and back cover, and blank inside calendar pages.
They are spiral bound and you can purchase coordinating number, month, and year stickers so you can personalize them.
All you need to do is add your favourite photos, papers, and other embellishments and you’re all set. I approached this calendar like I do mini-albums–I stuck with papers from the same manufacturer (for the most part), I kept the same simple design scheme throughout the calendar, and I used the same embellishments throughout as well. I wanted this calendar to hang well on the wall and not be too bulky, so I didn’t use any embellishments with dimension—just some calendar journaling sprouts from Jillibean Soup.
Here’s my front cover:
And here are some of the inside pages:
Since I organize my digital photos by month on my computer it was easy to browse through them and choose one favorite photo from each month. Next I sketched out my design and figured out the dimensions I would need to cut my papers beforehand. Then I pulled some semi-seasonal papers from my stash for each month, and I was able to create the calendar “assembly style” at a crop since I already had everything planned out.
Here is the sketch I used with the dimensions included for landscape or portrait style photos:
Keeping things simple and sketching out a design make this calendar come together very quickly, and I love how it turned out. When the year is finished and I have all of our appointments and schedules written in for each month, this keepsake calendar will sit on the bookshelf with our scrapbooks so that we can browse through it occasionally and enjoy the photos and written memories.
Article by: Aly Dosdall
