Earlier this week I shared a fun little gift that my mom whipped up for my siblings and me, and how you could adapt it for newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, etc. The gift was so super simple to make, and it saved her oodles of money by being DIY, rather than purchasing the photographs from a website. Along those same lines, I made a calendar for my mom that was a big hit, but wasn’t a big hit to my wallet. I’ve seen all of those calendars that Snapfish and Apple offer, but I wasn’t quite sold on the formatting or the standard 8.5 x 11 shape. So, in the name of all things DIY around these parts, I took to my trusty photoshop and whipped up a quick calendar that was even more special because it was completely custom.
I started off with custom front and back covers. The front cover was fun to create because I got to play with different fonts and colors together… making me realize that I need a larger library of fonts to work with. Future project? I also added a little message to mi madre on the back to let her know her lovely children collaborated on this calendar for her, and a date to commemorate the occasion. Also, if you know me and my family, you’ll notice that the last name has been tweaked to something a bit more generic. You have to have some anonymity in the blog world, right?
After the front and back covers were completed, I made one template for my calendars and simply tweaked it for each month but changing up the dates, colors and adding everyone’s birthdays and anniversary dates. I wanted the template to be clean and simple to not take away from the most important part for my mom- the family photographs. I threw in some fun photos of things we had done this year, either as a family or as our separate couples. I loved doing this custom so that I could coordinate the text colors to the pictures I selected – a bit obsessive compulsive? Possibly.
I had this little calendar spiral bound at my local printer, and the grand total came into about $20 for printing and binding. Not too shabby, right? I didn’t take a final picture of the product (bad blogger!) but I used some of Whitney’s Divine Twine, threaded through the spiral binding and tied in a bow, for my mom to hang her calendar wherever she so pleased.
I’ve learned that any gift that was made by hand is a thousand times better than something bought from a store. Don’t get me wrong, anything from Anthropologie is always welcomed with open arms, but a gift like this or something else that took a little time on the part of the giver is a win in my book. Any other DIY gifts out there that you’d like to share?
Divine Twine image courtesy of Whisker Graphics
I love it and I want one every year!!
Great idea. I made one of these for my family a couple of years back (using a generic one by a company, not a snazzy photoshop one like yours). I really enjoyed customzing the pictures each month, so the photo related to an event (birthday/anniversary) that happened in that corresponding month.
Too cute!! What a great idea :) What font did you use for “Smith” ? Its so much fun! I always love seeing the ideas you come up with :)