DIY: January 2012 Calendar

A new year calls for a new calendar. They are easy to make and cute to give as a Happy New Year gift. So far, I’ve only created one for January 2012, but I intend to make one for each month. I made a mini one using two 6 x 6″ card stock squares, but if you need one to write-in all those appointments and events to hang in your kitchen, you can do the same thing using 12 x 12″ card stock. To make the calendar extra sturdy, I used the cardboard from a recycled Fiber One bar box (this saved me from having to go and buy new 12 x 12 sheets of poster board).

The “January 2012″ words were free-hand drawn with pencil then cut out using an x-acto knife and the snowflakes were created using a paper punch (size x-small). The calendar grid was created simply using a ruler and dividing the space into a grid of 5 squares by 7 squares. I left about 1 cm on all sides to create a border and hand-wrote the numbers and days of the week.

You can create this simply by using 3 pieces of card stock 6″ x 6” each using any combination of a pattern and complementing solid color, as well as one neutral color. Then you just need a good x-acto knife (highly recommended) or scissors, adhesive, and a paper punch or other little decorative doodads if desired. And that’s it! It’s great to try and use up your left over scraps from other projects, if you can. Even though we’re all addicted to fun paper crafts, we have to try and be as green as possible whenever we can.

Happy January 2012! And Happy New Year!

Pop Up Card: Gift Box

As mentioned, I planned on creating 4 pop up spreads in my grandma’s Christmas card. Yesterday, I featured the poinsettia and today, I have finally completely the pop up gift box. In previous posts, I have showed cards with pop-up gifts stacked on top of each other along the crease of the card, but the illusion only shows 2 sides of the gift boxes.

My goal for this card was to have a full 3D gift box pop out right in the middle of the card. The wrapping paper for the gift box is shiny silver metallic cardstock, but it doesn’t appear as shiny in the photos. The rest of the paper is yet again from Stampin’ Up. No Jolee’s stickers for decorative accents this time though. The stars are made from a paper punch and the tag that says “To Gram” is my own hand cut-out using an x-acto knife and careful handwriting.

Take a peek if you would like at the photos below!