Cricut 2009 Calendar

This has been my project this week: a handcrafted calendar that can be used later as scrapbook pages.

First I printed out the actual calendar pages from Printmaster, adding in my special dates and removing their month/year from the top of each page. I used my Cricut machine for the cutting(if you want to know what that is, do a Google search for Cricut), and the Cricut Design Software for the titles. On most pages I used several sheets of coordinating paper, the title and either some other Cricut cut outs or some stickers that matched.

Some of the cut outs or stickers are laying flat and others are dimensional, using the adhesive foam dots that give height. The top heart on this page is dimensional. I used a fine point scrapbook pen and outlined/doodled around the edges of all titles and cut outs to add character and a completed look to them.

Martin's birthday is in March and he told me to do something nice for his page! As a teacher, I would have normally gone for green and St. Patty's day colors or kites. But, in thinking in terms of Martin, I chose purple. Purple makes him happy, so I found a more masculine sheet of paper that had purple, as well as olive green and other colors. I happened to have felt flowers (from the dollar store) just waiting for the right project. I added a brad in the middle of them and TA! dah! Page done.

One of the things you can do with each Cricut cartridge, is choose (out of about 6 different choices) the way your letters look. For April, I chose a font that allowed you to cut them out in an oval, thus looking like Easter Eggs. I just glued a scrap of coordinating paper behind each egg to let a different color show thru the letter itself. I already had the strip of sticker grass, and tucked my "eggs" down in.

My Mom got me the "Walk In My Garden" cartridge several Christmas' ago and it was perfect for this page! It makes all kinds of flowers, leaves, grass, bugs... I made/cut out and layered the flowers, caterpillar and grass, but the butterflies were in my sticker stash.

I chose to do June as a baby theme, as this is Emma's birthday month. Mom also got me the "New Arrival" cart. (last Christmas) and it came in handy today! In looking over this page, I find it a bit plain compared to the others and will probably go back and add to it. Maybe some printed paper at the top- under the baby and the title. Not sure how I overlooked that!

Again, the cart. that I chose to do JULY with, allowed me to cut them out in rectangles with the letter inside. I added blue paper on the back allowing the letters to show thru better. Cut out a few stars and added a few July 4th stickers and it was done.

This is my birthday month, and I was pondering just what to do with the page. Ribbon makes me happy, as does the color pink. I like flowers and brads and ... So I looked at my ribbon rack and there was pink ribbon with white flowers sketched on it. PERFECT! I went from there. The ribbon gave me the color scheme, as the flowers had a green center. I found bright pink papers and a bright lime type green; cut out the flowers with that same WIMG (walk in my garden) cartridge and added ribbon, brads, etc... and I am pleased with August!

Again, as a teacher, Sept. is a Back TO School theme in one way or another, but I am not going to school, or is Emma so I had to come to another conclusion! September is not "fall" yet either in South Florida! Finally I found the pretty patterned paper that got me started. It had kind of a tan/taupe color with shades of olive green swirled in. I found a dimensional flower in the right shade of green, but did not have the right color of extra large brad for the center. SO, I glued the top of a non-matching brad and glittered it brown!! (Using ultra fine scrapbooking glitter) I also added some doodling/outlining type edgers to my letters and added glitter there also. Made for a grown-up & pretty looking page!

The best part was, I had JUST bought that glitter pack at Wal Mart on clearance, for $2!! Found it in the Martha Stewart Christmas clearance! I HAD to have it, but wasn't sure just where I would use it. It has 6 colors and it was perfect for that page, as i used the light brown and the pale green

I made this one more childish looking, as it will be Emma's first real Halloween. I had the little stickers of kids dressed up in my sticker stash and they looked cute. As for Halloween, I want Emma & Daddy to dress up as a duo of some sort! Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf or something like that.

"Printing Press" cartridge has this great font that mixes and matches different styles of letters!! Love it!!!

December has a black silhouette of Santa's sleigh and reindeer. Again the ol' Cricut cut those out! I attached the reindeer to each other and then to the sleigh with a soft gold colored floss. After I took the photo, I added a gold, delicate sticker to the bottom corner that says "Merry Christmas".

This project took me about 3 & 1/2 days. I worked on it 2 pages at a time, completing 2 the first day, 4 the next, 4 more and then the final 2 on Wed. IT got me away from the TV and back to being creative! I used only stuff that I already had. Buying nothing new. While I do have quite a bit of scrapbook supplies, it did mean that I had to do a bit of planning and searching for the right stuff, as I can be a bit of a perfectionist. (I redid the January page after the whole calendar was complete! I had used a liquid glue to attach the calendar to the matting paper and it wrinkled while drying and bugged me to death!! It was also too plain, as i did not use a patterned paper under the title on that 1st page and only had the snowman to decorate it. I later added the snowflakes.)

I hole punched each page and attached them together with 2 metal rings. I then tied about 10 or 12 bits of colorful ribbon and fibers to those rings to spruce them up. The completed calendar looks so cute! My intention at first was JUST to make a cute calendar. But as I made each page, I realized why couldn't I also use it as a scrapbook page for the 2009 book??? So, I saved my scraps of each paper, any extra cut outs that I had made, as well as any extra pcs. of the paper I had used. I used a big metal clamp/clip and attached them altogether to save, so that the page that will go right next to the calendar page can be made to coordinate. Clever thinking on my part I would say. Or at least forward thinking!

ENJOY!!

P.S. Aunt Linda, I used the reduced size photos for this blog, so I'm not sure how large they will be when you click on them! I had already reduced them in size to use on the Cricut message boards and to send to a friend and they load so much faster, that I used them here also!