Category Archives: Art Projects

I’ve never used a calendar until this year – something about my spontaneous carpe diem lifestyle never seemed to fit inside that box.

And then I had kids – who went to school.

My calendar has been a lifesaver this year, with each day having multiple things marked: carpool, snack assignments, early day, doctors appointments, homework day, etc. etc. etc.

So for next year I decided to make my own. I’ve long admired a friend of mine’s calendar. They make one every year based on a template at kinkos or something. While I like the family pictures in it, I wanted a design a little more custom.

And so . . .

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!

This calendar took me about a month to make . . .

I designed the grid/month/text in Illustrator using fonts: Splendid 66 & Pee Pants Script

Then I tore apart the PSD files of a book template that I have from Simplicity Design, rearranged them slightly to fit my format, and inserted some of my favorite pictures of the past few years.

As I looked through my old pictures to find ones for the calendar, I was reminded: Man, I have gorgeous kids!

Just saying.

Anyhow, at first I tried to have a picture from the featured month – you know, a January picture on the January page. But once I hit March I realized that wouldn’t work – for some reason I have very VERY few pictures in March of any year. Don’t know why. So then I just let it be a free for all and put in any pictures from any time that I loved. There is one spread/month dedicated to each kiddo. And I still need to get my 2011 family picture taken so I can trade it out with the picture in September (the one with the kids on the truck – same one that’s on the October spread). And I added a photo of each family member on their birth date.

Anyhoo- it’s been a bit of a laborious process, but fun. If you want to take a closer look, you can click on the image above for a humongo humongo version, or just visit my flickr page to see each month individually.

Now to find a printer . . .

click for larger version

A fun little illustration while Wyatt and I watched tv the other night. (He watched, I doodled).

This is a digital illustration I started years later of the Lemon Galleon I made on the reservation. I obviously never finished the illustration, but you get the idea.

When I lived on the Indian Reservation I made a lemon galleon out of paper mache.

And then I made fish to swim along side.

Paper mache fish with giant kissy lips and beauty marks and fake eyelashes.

And jellyfish with irredescent tentacles.

And then my friends made some too. Between all of us we made a plethora of fishies in a variety of characters. Emily made me my own bride fish and groom fish.

It was glorious.

And then, because we lived in a double wide with a vaulted ceiling, we hung our lovely creations from the ceiling with fishing line.

So that when we sat up at night and discussed the heavy things twenty year old philosophers carried, there was a whimsy of water love above our heads.

Aww . . . romance.

See my early fascination with lanterns?