October Calendar Topper

The Holidays are coming...and this month is one of my favorites!  I love everything that comes with Halloween and after 8 kids, we're getting pretty good at it!  Now I have a whole bunch of grandkids to enjoy as they decorate their homes and porches with pumpkins and witches and ghosts and webs...and as they decide what they want to be for Halloween.  So, of course, for my October Calendar topper, I picked Halloween as my theme!

This Calendar was so fun to design!  I used some Halloween paper that I had left over from last year - My Mind's Eye - and it worked great!  I used the following designer template sets in my design:

Spook Alley, Strips, Halloween, Adventure, Tags, Tiny Tags, Tiny Holiday, Tiny Nature and Photos.

I had a lot of fun with the pumpkins from the Halloween and Tiny Holiday Accessory sets.  I used a crimper to add some texture to the larger pumpkin and then layered them together, adding leaves and a star to go with the star theme in the paper.  

Next I used two tags that reminded me of tombstones, one from the Tags set and one from the Tiny Tags set.  It's a simple embellishment, but really added a fun touch to this design!  

I pulled the same paper down to the Month space and added some punch-out stars from the paper line and Thickers letters for OCTOBER...in a really cute green color, which pops!

It all came together beautifully and the family photo from one Halloween was the perfect finishing touch!  I hope you'll take the time to create your own Halloween Calendar!  

Designed by Debbie Budge

September Calendar

As soon as I saw these pictures of my granddaughter, Riley, heading off to school for another year, I knew they would be perfect for my September Calendar topper!  

I used the Simple Stories Harvest Lane line of paper...so cute...along with some Core-dinations cardstock that I have on hand.  I wanted to capture the fun feels and colors of Fall...leaves and ripening apples...as well as the excitement of the first day of school.  

Here is a list of the designer templates I used to create my Calendar:  Chestnut Drive 2a/2b and 3b, Strips, Halloween 3, Tiny Holiday 2T and 4T, Tiny Nature 1T, 3T and 4T, Tags 5, Tiny Sweetheart 1T and Photos.

I made the apples out of the pumpkin templates in Halloween and Tiny Holiday.  The center of the larger apple is the smaller pumpkin from Tiny Holiday with the stem trimmed off.  I hand-cut little 'seeds' for the center of the apple.  

I pulled the same colors and patterns down to the header and added some glittered letters to spell SEPTEMBER.  The arrow is from Tiny Nature and the leaves are from Tiny Nature and Tiny Holiday.

I always pull some of the colors and patterns down to the bottom of my calendar using different STRIPS.  It gives the whole design a completed look.

And here's the end result!  I love it and have it hanging right by my scrapbooking table.  I hope you are working on your own calendar...it would make a wonderful gift for a loved on at Christmas!

Designed by Debbie Budge

August Calendar

As soon as I saw this photo of some of my grandkids and my youngest son, Matthew, all piled into a little backyard pool, I knew I wanted it on my August Calendar topper! This perfectly illustrates the hot August summer days and the fun ways kids find to keep cool!

I used our hand-picked ON THE SUNNY SIDE paper kit that is in our KLD SHOP to create the calendar and the following designer templates: Sunnybrook Lane, Chestnut Drive, 12" Strips, Photos, Photo Mats, Adventure, Paradise, Tiny Accents, and Tiny Wildflower.

I love layering the Tiny sets with the larger Accessory sets. I used the water splat from the Paradise set and topped it with a sunburst from Tiny Accents and a felt flower I had in my stash. A button was the perfect center!

Here's a close-up of the month page on the calendar. I brought the same patterns and colors down from above and recreated the same embellishment to tie it all together. I found some cute chipboard letters in my scrap drawer and inked right over them with an ink pad...so quick and easy!

This is not a good picture at all...too many shadows in this room. But I wanted to show you how cute it is when hanging above some of my templates where I scrapbook. I hope you have been working on your calendar each month! It makes such a wonderful gift or a great place to hold your own special memories!

Debbie Budge

July Calendar

This month's Calendar is focused on the Fourth of July...one of my very favorite holidays and one where I take a ton of pictures! For my July Calendar, I used Large Brackets, Cascade Trails, Happy Trails, Tags, Celebrate, Tiny Accents, Strips and Photos. The paper is My Mind's Eye and the pictures are of my grandson, Eli - Susan's little boy. Designed by Debbie Budge

June Calendar

Around here, June means summer and water and fun! So I went with a water theme for this month's Calendar. I used My Mind's Eye Hip-Hooray paper and the following Designer Templates: Chestnut Drive, Paradise, Tiny Wacky, Wacky, Adventure, Tiny Accents, Strips, Photos. Designed by Debbie Budge

May Calendar

Mother's Day is in May....coming soon! So I wanted to focus on Mother's Day for my calendar this month. While looking through some old photos, I found these pictures from Mother's Day 13 years ago that I never scrapped. I love these photos! My boys and my nephew surprised me that day with their version of a Mother's Day card. I was so surprised! I really enjoyed highlighting this memory on May's calendar. 

Designer Templates used:  Sunnybrook Lane, Brackets, Tiny Brackets, Tiny Shapes, Floral, Tiny Tags, Accents, Photos, Photo Mats and Strips. 

The paper is Simple Stories - their Generations line. 

Designed by Debbie Budge.

April Calendar - Designed by Debbie Budge

Since Easter is in April and only a week away, I decided to do an Easter theme for my April Calendar. This was a lot of fun! I made some decorated eggs using jewels and stickles to add glitter and shine, and I created a 'peep' sticking out of a cracked egg and used orange stickles to add some dimension and shine to the pattern on the paper. I used a template from Spook Alley to give the feel of a picket fence. Then...and this is my very favorite.....I made a chocolate bunny peeking out from behind the photo mat - almost as if he is watching to make sure he doesn't get eaten! I left the photo mat bare for now, but I'll add a group shot of the grandkids from Easter Sunday. I left room for a 5x7 photo. The templates I used are: Spook Alley 1a, Scallops 2a, Mini Aspen 1b, Bracket 3, 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 Photo Matte, Tiny Shapes 3T, 4T and 8T, Tiny Nature 1T and 2T, Tiny Accents 1T and Strips.

To make the cracked egg, I cut out the oval from Tiny Shapes...the larger one - 8T....and then I just cut it apart in a jagged line. Then I cut the leaf from Tiny Nature (1T) and used my orange stickles to make a 'beak' and a jewel for the eye. I just cut the wing out by hand...a triangle shape with two rounded corners. The other two eggs are Tiny Shapes 4T and 8T.

I love my little chocolate bunny! I used a piece of core-ordinations cardstock so that I could give the bunny some texture and dimension. I sanded off the embossed part and the core color came through. I used the small oval and circle from the Tiny Shapes set for the face and ears and added googly eyes and an orange jewel nose. Maybe not a perfect bunny....but an adorable one!

For the lower part of the calendar with the month APRIL on it, I brought down the colors and patterns in the top and used some chipboard letters from My Mind's Eye for the title. It gave the calender just the right finishing touch!

It all came together beautifully...a whimsical Easter Calendar....and I can't wait to add a photo of my grandchildren on Easter Sunday!

March Calendar

March means Spring is coming, so I chose this lovely paper from My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart's Be Happy line because I loved the beautiful flowers on it for my March Calendar topper. I also used a piece of Core'dinations cardstock from my paper stash. Templates used were: Sunnybrook Lane 1a1b, 2b, 3a; Wildflower 1; Nature 6; Tiny Sweetheart 3T, 4T; 1/2" Strips; Tiny Wacky 2T; Photos and Photo Mattes. Designed by Debbie Budge.


I like to give my Calendar a finished look by adding some strips of the different papers at the bottom.



I wanted to highlight some of the rich color from the flowers printed on the paper, so I used a piece of Core'dinations Cardstock to add texture and color to my Calendar. I sanded the embossed image on the cardstock and around the edges to bring out the core color and pattern. It added just the right amount of pop to my flower.


I wanted to pull brown into my Calendar page because of my daughter, Rachel's, beautiful brown hair in the photo. So I used a brown fabric flower as the center of my Nature flower at the top, and I brought the brown down into the title. I used My Mind's Eye Brown Lush chipboard letters...the fuzzy ones. I love the texture of those letters and the brown really complements the soft pastel spring colors in the paper.

February

February's Calendar topper is all about.....LOVE!

I LOVE how my calendar is turning out. I LOVE that I'm actually getting a calendar done this year! And...I LOVE the pictures on this calendar. They are of my daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Jake...and you can just see the LOVE they have for each other.

I used We R Memory Keepers paper and the following templates to make this month's calendar:

Madison Avenue 3a, Abbie Road 1b, Scallops 1a, Strips, Tiny Wildflower 1T and 4T, Nature 1, Sweetheart 1 and 2, Tiny Sweetheart 2T and 4T.

I wanted to join the hearts together, just as Sarah and Jake did when they got married. So I put an eyelet in the middle of each heart and tied them together with ribbon strung with a tiny lock and key. I LOVE how it turned out!

I hope you'll take some time this month to create your own February Calendar page...and that you'll share it with us on our Facebook page! We would LOVE to see what you come up with!

Designed by Debbie Budge

Cal.en.dar...

....a timetable of special days or events!

Most of us use a calendar of some kind to organize our lives and keep track of our extended family birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes we even give them as gifts! Several years ago, I decided to make a calendar for my parents for Christmas. I knew it was a good idea...something they would really love. But I didn't realize how long it would take to put together! I left making it until mid-December, thinking it would take just a few hours to design. Boy...was I wrong! It was a lot of work, and because I'd left it so late, I felt the time-pressure to get it done and didn't really enjoy making it as much as I hoped I would. It turned out really cute, but was really stressful to make. So...New Year's Resolution?? Make a calendar for a Christmas gift or for my home office, but do one page a month! Brilliant!

Have YOU ever wanted to scrapbook a calendar for yourself or for a loved one as a gift, but never found the time? Join us the 1st Monday of every month as we design one calendar page a month using our Designer Templates!

I know that January is almost gone, but here's the first calendar page for you.



It turned out really cute! I had so much fun designing it! Echo Park's Wintertime and Winter Park paper lines were perfect for this design. I also used some brown paper from my paper stash.

Borders:
For the borders, the templates I used were Aspen Court 1A, 3A and 3B...and two 1/2" strips from the Strips set. I wanted the look of hills and Aspen Court was perfect for that. I was also able to place my template over the very place in the paper where I would get a variety of colors with one cut, which was a really cute effect for the snow-covered hills behind the snowman. I love that the designer templates are opaque!



Snowman:
I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make the snowman! It was super easy with the designer templates. I used the circles from the Tiny Shapes set for the body of the snowman - Tiny Shapes 3T and 7T. Then I used the smaller rounded triangle in the same set - Tiny Shapes 1T - for the hat. I was going for the look of a snow hat here, with a pom pom on top. The pom pom is a flower punch that I've had for years, and the white, glittered rim is a trimmed-off piece of the same small rounded triangle shape. Then I really wanted a scarf, so I looked through my designer templates until I found the rounded arrow in the Playtime set - Playtime #3. I traced the arrow onto the red paper, cut the arrow end off, and fringed the pointed end for the scarf. I cut two different arrows and just trimmed them down a bit until they layered into a scarf. It really looks like a scarf...just what I wanted! I added some googly eyes, a paper carrot nose that I trimmed down from a little triangle piece of orange paper, a floral wire mouth and a couple of buttons down the middle.



Embellishments:
I embellished the design with templates from the Tiny Holiday, Tiny Accents and Tiny Brackets sets: Tiny Holiday 3T and 8T, Tiny Accents 1T, Tiny Brackets 4T. I inked some chipboard letters that say SNOW using my Vintage Photo ink pad and a dauber. I love how the bracket points to the picture of my son, Matthew, sledding down a snowy hill! I painted the letters in my JANUARY header with Pearl paint by Making Memories. I really like the way the letters stand out! Very easy to read.



That's how I made my January Calendar page! Of course, I inked everything, as usual, to help the colors and patterns pop.

We will be posting a new calendar each month on the 1st Monday of the month...all the way through December! If you join us, you, too, will have a completed calendar to use as a gift, to give to your husband for his office, or to hang in your home.

We would love to see your calendar designs!! Please post them on our facebook wall for all of us to see and to get inspiration from!

If you need a blank calendar, we have some in our SHOP at www.kiwilane.com. You can click here to purchase a calendar or to see all the calendar samples so far. I'll be posting all of our Calendar pages there as well as on our Facebook page. Have fun! Debbie