Projects from an old calendar
Old calendars are too good to recycle — here are five small projects that use every part of them.
Dear friend,
There is always an old calendar somewhere in the house. Tucked in a drawer, stacked by the back door, handed over by a neighbour who knew you'd find a use for it. Maybe you've been hoarding a few, half-guilty, half-certain they'd come in handy.
They will. That's what this video is about.
The thing I love about working with calendar pages is that you're not trying to disguise what they are. The grid, the numbers, the occasional handwriting from whoever used it before you — that's the whole point. The charm is already there. You're just adding a layer of colour and texture on top of something that already has personality.
In this video I work through five different projects: watercoloured stamped ephemera from the individual date squares, pocket journaling cards built around the grid, folded image pages with little tuck spots, bookmarks, and folded calendar covers you can use as journal inserts. There are side ideas along the way too — it's that kind of afternoon. What I came away with was a little archive of calendar ephemera I could reach for whenever a page needed something, and the whole thing cost nothing at all.
If you've got a calendar waiting for a second life, here's what to do with it — start to finish.
Old Calendar Project Ideas
What you'll make
bookmark·card·journal cover·journaling card·ephemera·journaling spot
What you'll learn
upcycled·cutting·embellishing·folding·gluing·inking
What you'll need
bakers twine·baking paper·calendar pages·cereal box·dyed paper·glue stick
That's what I keep coming back to with this kind of making. The hard work — the structure, the visual interest, the story — is already in the paper. Your job is just to bring it out. I hope these five ideas give that old calendar exactly the second life it deserves.
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