Our new Calendar

I think I have a brilliant idea for a calendar for our house this year. It took about a week for me to get the idea worked out in my head, but I'm thrilled with the results. I couldn't figure out how to make the calendar light enough so it would hang all year with the kinds of images I wanted to put on it. Then, after a week, I realized that if I used these Tim Holtz metal corners and left them a little bit open, I can slip the new month and image into the corners after I remove the old month. By doing this, I save a pile of paper too, because I have this calendar base and I don't have to have a base for every month - KWIM?



For Christmas, my DH gave me Provocraft's Design Studio for my cricut so I will use my cricut more. I used the weld function from this program to create the joined word, January. I LOVE THAT FEATURE!!!!! It's what I've always wanted, but couldn't do. I created the icicles on the word with Rock Candy stickles. I had to apply 2 coats of it because the first dried thin. The numbers are stamped using Just Rite curlz font.



I'm quite pleased with the way this turned out. Sorry the lighting is such a high yellow - I took the picture hanging on the wall in my kitchen instead of under my beloved OTT lighting. My DD said that she always thinks of January as blue, so I incorporated that into my design. I got inspiration for this layout from this card by Michelle Giraud.



When I saw what Michelle did with this image, Perfect Snowflake, I fell in love with it. It's a marvelous image. I coloured it with prismacolors and gamsol. The snowflake is very glitzy irl because I used glitter to highlight it and some patina stickles on the round points.



I used 2 pieces of memory glass for this sentiment. I stamped a snowflake using opaque white staz on on the back piece of glass. On the front piece, I stamped the sentiment using black stazon. I didn't have any silver memory glass frames, so I took one of the aged copper ones I had and coloured it using a silver zig painty pen.

Month by month I'll reveal the next image for my calendar, and I hope you'll stick with me through this LONG project. I'm really looking forward to creating this calendar in a leisurely way all year long. Each of the large images is 8 1/2" square and it's quite a stretch for me since I'm more accustomed to 6x6" and standard size cards. Emphasis on cards. I love the jumbo brad I put for the hole at the top as it relieves my big beef with calendars tearing as the months are changed so that by the end of the year, they won't stay on the nail in the wall anymore.

Happy New Year everyone, and I'll see you on Saturday for the OCC challenge!!! Stay warm.

stamps; perfect snowflake (american art stamps), let it snow (impression obsession), serene snowflakes (SU!)
paper; kraft (paper accents), black tie, green apple (bazzill), skate shoppe (basic grey)
ink; vintage linen, tea dye, balck soot distress ink (ranger), opaque white, jet black staz on (tsukineko)
accessories; corners, memory glass & frame (tim holz), pewter jumbo brad, white satin ribbon, soft sky ribbon, felt snowflakes (SU!), stickles (ranger), border punch (fiskars)