Christmas Crafts: Calendar

I finally distributed the last of the christmas presents, so I can post about some of the other gifts I made.

Every year I do a calendar, for the past two I've done two seperate calendars for each side of the family. This year I only got to one.

Here's the details of my operation: I use Microsoft Publisher, because I know it and I have it. I print on cardstock on my printer, that's a pretty nice one. (I've printed with laser printers on glossy paper too, and I like the way the photos look better, but the trip to Kinkos or Printing shop was kind of a huge hassle).

I bind the pages with my Bind it all, an O-wire binding tool.

My layout for the Daley family calendar, is landscape, with pictures on the top page, and a full calendar for each month on the bottom page.

Each family (7 of them in all) gets a month, then the other 5 are specialty ones- their themes include/have included the following:

• Reunion page of pictures of us all together
• History page from z John's parent's (this year was about the 1960's/their teenage years, years past were about ancestors with dates/small history)
• Quotes page where each family member is asked the same question (this year was "What do you want on your own private island?"
• Halloween page of costumes
• Pictures from Christmas time/playing in the snow
• Portrait gallery
• Small cousins in various dressup costumes
• All the babies born that year

This was the cover this year. The theme was "Daleytown Island"- Each page's theme was a location on the island. A spa, a shooting range, a christmas forest, a school, a bakery, etc.

One of the highlights of this year was having John's mother, Linda, write an essay about the 1960's, which includes her romance and marriage to Richard, John's father. This time included his mission to Beunos Aires, so we included a copy of his mission identification from the First Presidency. I love hearing people's romance stories, and they have a classic one: high school sweethearts.

I'd include pictures of all the family members, but I'm lazy. Here's our page. You can see how I use digital scrapbooking kits to border the pictures and accent. I've gotten every piece of digital paper and embellishments free- by using digifree.blogspot.com. They list the freebies people are giving away each day. You have to weed through the ok ones and the freebies that are just layouts, but it's worth the effort in my experience.

For my parent's calendar, I do each page with our family, and it's more themed around the activities of each month, with whatever pictures of them I've taken through the year.

If you're thinking about doing this for your family- it's great! The only thing- it will take some time, especially if gathering pictures from family members does not include blog picture snatching. I start in September, and do it occasionally on Sunday afternoons and after the kids are in bed. Then it's not stressful and most of the calendar's done before Thanksgiving.

Any questions?