2012 calendar

I love calendars and to-do lists. I get satisfaction from writing down my daily tasks and marking them off as they are completed. I also enjoy calendar design. Elegant, photographic, illustrative, quirky...it doesn't matter; they are all beautiful. One day I decided, I am a designer; why haven't I designed my own calendar? So I did it.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, a good friend and I decided to attempt our first craft fair in the fall of 2011. This calendar was going to be one of our big ticket items. I made the assumption that everyone shared the joy I experience with calendars. I set a lofty goal: rather than design one blank calendar that could be customized as the months changed, I designed something for each month.

Photoshop and Illustrator were my weapons of choice. Illustrator was used to draw the grid and the frame for the month. I pasted these into Photoshop, where I already had my backgrounds designed and waiting. I then input all the dates, the name of the month, and occasionally a little decorative element (like the birds in January and February). Royally fudging the dates was a big fear of mine. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an office calendar that included a back page of tiny monthly calendars for 2012. Whew!

Not only did I design 12 different calendars, I made the size 11x14 (all the more room to write daily tasks, my dear). As my designer peers know, if a design has a full bleed (meaning the print runs all the way to the edge) it has to be printed on larger paper and cut down to actual size. So I actually had a 13x19 file. Around here only Kinko's (save for custom printers) can print that size. And Kinko's is not cheap (nor are custom printers). The big fat price tag for 12 printed months was $25. Not horrible.

But the beauty of this calendar was that I was going to make it into a dry erase board! So I needed a frame (the glass works perfectly with Expo markers). I find basic frames to be quite boring, and I didn't need a really decorative frame because it would be what I like to call an "assault on the eyeballs" when paired with the decorative designs. Not to mention the price tags usually associated with fancy frames. I bought the least expensive 11x14 frame I could find at the time (the deadline was fast approaching), which cost me a whopping $12 plus tax.

As I have also mentioned in previous posts, I like old rustic-looking things. And the frame was boring anyway. Distress painting frames is another activity where I find joy. It's very easy: two layers of acrylic paint and some crackle medium (a clear liquid found in any hobby store). You could also use Elmer's glue in place of the crackle medium. Paint the first coat of paint directly onto the surface and let dry completely. Coffee Brown was the color in this case. Brush the crackle medium onto the paint and let dry. I've found that the more liberally you apply it, the better the crackle. It also takes a bit longer than the paint to dry, so I used this time to squeeze in a little reading, washing dishes, or some other boring chore. Now you're ready for the big finale. Apply your second color of paint, which in my case was a beige color called Mushroom. Now watch, as mere seconds after the paint is applied it begins to crackle as it dries. If you apply this last coat in a fairly thick layer, the crackles will be deeper and more distinct and let more of the base coat show through. (I use this crackle method on all sorts of things. Excellent color combinations include brown or antique white paired with a bright color.)

This calendar ended up costing me about $40 after printing the calendar pieces and buying the frame, Expo markers, and paint. At the craft fair where this baby made its debut we put a fairly hefty price tag of $50, leaving us a profit of only $10. I had said that I made the assumption that everyone shares my joy of calendars. They did not. Well not at that price, even though we asked for barely more than we put into it. In hindsight, this calendar would have been much more cost-effective if I had designed only one background and left the grid and month frame blank. We probably could have sold 12 different calendars for $20 apiece, especially since it was to be a dry erase calendar anyway. You live, you learn. It's not all bad because now this beauty is sitting in my office, and I get to be provided with its joy for the rest of the year. And I know better for next time ;)