Wednesday, January 5, 2011

How-To: Postcard Calendar Journal

In the beginning of December I was looking at Design*Sponge and was smitten with this lovely calendar. Each day you write a little blurb about what you did - like a mini journal entry. This continues through the years and the life of the calendar. It seems like a real keepsake :)

On New Years Eve we were invited to a party and thought that this would make a perfect host/Christmas gift. It was pretty easy to make. You can make it too if you follow the tutorial here.

We bought most of the paper supplies at Walmart so we saved money there. We picked up the mega-index cards there - 2 packs of 100 - and the paper cutter. The date stamper and ink pad came from an office supply store (Walmart only had the self inking). The postcards (50 cents each) and enamel container ($6) came from a local antique store.

Jeremy cut all of the index cards in half with the paper cutter. He cut about 5 at a time, running the blade back and forth over the cards 2 or 3 times. The postcards didn't need to be cut. They were actually about a half inch smaller than the halved index cards.

When it was time to start stamping dates (remember, no year!), I began at Dec 31. That way I didn't have to reverse-sort every card in the set when I finished. That saved some time.

Also after I inked the stamp with the date, I put the index card on top of some scrap paper. Since I couldn't avoid inking the year on the stamp I just let that portion of the stamp hang over the right edge of the card. The scrap paper worked perfect for catching all of those "2011"s :)

The cards fit perfectly into the enamel container and were finished off with a little holiday ribbon.

See Ashley's full calendar tutorial on Design*Sponge.

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