I do admit that I wasn’t particularly happy with the suggested project in the December 2018 Paper Pumpkin kit. But, I was able to create a very useful perpetual calendar that will help me track birthdays and anniversaries for family and friends. One of my resolutions for this year is to be much better at sending cards in a timely fashion, and this calendar will definitely help me toward that goal!
There are several pictures below that walk through the steps I used to create the calendar. I hope the pictures inspire you!
A few more crafty resolutions that I have are being more frugal with my crafty purchases and “shopping my stash” to use the items that I already have. My frugal nature shows in this calendar project since I used the chip board from the Paper Pumpkin kit to create the back of the calendar! The picture below shows the measurements that I used to make the chip board. I then placed on of the calendar pieces on each side of the marked up chip board and drew circles where the holes needed to be to hang the calendar pieces.
My Crop-a-Dile came in super handy to punch the holes in the chip board. What a great tool!
Then, I “shopped my stash” to find some retired DSP and washi tape that I thought went well with the colors in the calendar. It was fun to look at the possibilities that I had, and I bet you’ll find several options when you “shop your stash”.
There are a few tricks that I used when I attached the DSP to the chip board. First, I put the chip board in the middle on the top of the DSP (on the side that would be glued to the chip board) and marked where the holes would be. To strengthen the area where the holes would be, I put a few pieces of scotch tape. Then, I used Tombo glue (on the marked side of the chip board) and adhered the chip board to the DSP, making sure I lined up the marks for the holes. “Whimpy women’s weights” (as my husband likes to call them) were used to help set the glue.
After the glue was dry (doesn’t take long), I cut off the excess DSP with the chip board facing me. My Crop-a-Dile came in handy again to punch the holes in the DSP.
The kit includes gorgeous Pool Party colored ribbon. I cut two pieces of 18″ ribbon to use to tie on the calendar pieces. Since I new I would untie and tie the ribbons each month, I turned the ribbon ends into ones that mirror shoelace ends. I folded each end in half and wrapped each end with scotch tape. To finish the calendar back, I added washi tape. Before adding the tape, I put the calendar pieces onto the ribbon and tied the ribbon. This allowed me to know where to place the washi tape.
The final touches were selecting the stamp set that I wanted to use to make the calendar into my birthday and anniversary reminder. A few months ago, the Paper Pumpkin kit focused on male cards. The stamp set that came with the kit is incredibly versatile and works perfectly for my calendar. I used “anniversary” and “birthday” to mark the backs of each calendar page. The ink colors I chose are Soft Suede and Grapefruit Grove.
As you can see, the calendar for each month is shown on the left side of my project. The back of the previous month is stamped and shown on the right side of my project. I used the circle stamp from this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit to identify anniversaries and birthdays for each month. The colors correspond to the colors of “anniversary” and “birthday”. By the way, I used the back of the June 2020 calendar as the right side of my project for January 2019.
I hope you have found this project and pictures inspiring. Why not take a few minutes to make yourself a lovely calendar that will take you through June 2020!!
My next post will feature cards from the new Occasions Catalog!
Happy stamping!
Laurie