Mini Calendars 2012

I am posting my first tutorial. I am not brave enough to try a video but I did keep a picture portfolio of the various stages of this project. I decided to make some mini calendars. I found a similar tutorial on Mary Hasting's blog Very Merry Vintage Style. The one she did was for 2011 but she has updated her free printable for the 2012 calendar. (Thank you Mary for your generosity and inspiration.)

The first picture I would like to share is the finished project. This is one out of ten. Each ended up slightly different (colors and flowers) but they all have the same layout.

I started this project soon after Christmas and thus there were plenty of cardboard boxes laying around ready to be recycled/repurposed. The best ones were from my son's toys. I used my new Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 8 (a Christmas gift from my DH) to cut the cardboard and the matching paper.

 I used Elmer's glue and a sponge brush to cover the cardboard. Then I used a brayer to make sure I got edge to edge coverage and the paper was smooth.

The free printable for the calendars required me to cut all of the months out and then I needed a way to put them together. The tutorial on Mary's site showed how to use rubber cement. I researched a variety of ways and there is a medium out there that is made for this purpose. I chose to try the rubber cement because it was easily accessible. (I don't often have enough patience to wait for things to be delivered.)

Since I was making ten of these I used two rulers to line several calendar sets up at a time and binder clips to keep them together tight. The ends of the binder clips made it easy to hold the calendars as they dried. I put several layers just to be safe.

 You may be able to see in this picture the slight gloss on the top. Hopefully it will allow for easy removal of each month (one month at a time).

All that remained was to put the calendar together. I used a Hero Arts stamp from the set Butterflies and Dragonflies for the butterfly. I stamped each in an Artprint Brown from Memories and colored with my colored pencils. The flowers are from my stash and I used pearls from Queen & Co. for their centers. The ribbon is American Crafts. The sentiment is from a Cloud 9 Design set called Simple Thought - Travel (another Christmas gift).

 I intend to give these to my colleagues at work. Since there are 4 males I thought I should design one more to their liking. I chose a stamp from Heartfelt Impressions. I played around with putting some buttons but couldn't get it right. I think I like the simplicity of the layout.

 So here are the final pics.

While working on this project two challenges were posted. I don't often participate in challenges but follow them regularly. I love to see what others do. This project fits the challenge for My Pink Stamper to make something for someone to start the new year. The second challenge is from Stampin' Sisters in Christ. The challenge is to use something new. In this project I used several new items I got for Christmas.

This has been a long post and if you are still here, thank you. I hope you have enjoyed this project. I thought I appreciated other's blog that posted the how-to-tutorials. Now I have a deeper appreciation.
Have a blessed day!