Always behind...

I'm always behind the times on fashion and fads. When I was younger, I would see something I like in a store and NOT buy it. Then I would go back a week later and it would be sold out. My mom would always say, "you should have just gotten then". Yeah. I know. So, now I'm older. Not much wiser but I'm trying. I do try to get whatever I really think I want/need at first sight. As far as cutting edge goes though, electronics and technology (yes, well, ahem, I am an engineer) are about the only thing I can keep up with.

What am I rambling about? Well, I'll tell you. Linda, the A Muse guru and very cool person with a heart of gold, put out a calendar a couple of weeks ago. She's selling the file for a mere $3 and ALL of the proceeds go to Scleroderma research. Here's the link to the calendar. That is a near and dear to her heart, charity. She shared the file with the A Muse crew to see what we can come up with. And to bring my blog post full circle, Me... just getting around to it. The good news... you can still get the calendar and HEY, it's not even December yet, so I'm not LATE!

What I like about the calendar file...
* the fonts (I'm a sucker for clean fonts)
* the colors (I really like the colors for the months)
* the type set (not sure that's the correct word I'm looking for but usually I'm a BIG fan of using the case properly (i.e. NOT a fan of text message speak - I guess I'm old school that way!) but I really, REALLY like the look of the months being lowercase.
* each month is 4x4... do you know how many things you can do with 4x4? That fits on the A Muse note cards perfectly ;) and also with the Bind-it-All! Wohoo!

Okay, so what did I end up with? Well, a couple of things. One I took a while to do and I've sent it to Linda so I'll *hopefully* show you that later. But this project, I did fairly quickly and I LOVE the result.

As many of you know, my eldest is in Kindergarten. In Kinder, one of the activities in math centers is to do "calendar" time. It's amazing how much and how fast they learn stuff. Anyway, my son really enjoys having his own calendar (I got him one of those Melissa & Doug magnetic calendars). He updates it everyday. Anyway, I thought it would fun to make him a calendar for next year.

But what kind?

Well, a place mat of course. So, he can see the entire year at once. I printed out the calendar, cut it all out, then stamped and colored it. Then I adhered all the months to a large Red piece of card stock. I took that to Office Depot and had them laminate for me ($3). I have a great laminator but I don't have that size of lamination pouches (ooh, something else to get!). I'm very pleased with the result. I hope he likes it as much as I do. I had fun making it.

I used my new Spica Glitter pens on some of the images, like the sparklers in July. Seems appropriate ;).

All images by A Muse art stamps.

Calendars make great gifts. Seems like everyone needs one. Why not support a great charity and make a handmade gift this year?