What Better Project to End the Year With?

Than a Graphic45 Calendar for 2013!

Over the next few days the Graphic45 Design Team members will be contributing to one page each to the 2013 calendar using the 12X12" Easel Album.  Best of all, there will be tutorials for each page, which means, if you follow along each day, you will have a whole 2013 calendar completed by the end! Cool right?

We will be using the Graphic45 Place in Time collection so make sure you have your papers ready if you're following along with us! (This collection is available at PaperMarket already).

Here we go!  Yesterday was the cover page by Jane Trezenga and now I'm January! so here's my page.

Instead of having the calendar fill the whole page, I've decided to use the smaller calendar and instead have space where you can highlight the main things happening in the month, and even tuck extra notes and reminders in if you need.  Ok, so, let's get to making the page!

Here's all the items you'll need (not everything shown in picture)

Of course you'll need your

1.  12x12 Easel Album

From the awesome "Place in Time" collection:

1.  January Foundation

2. January Cut-Aparts

3.  Calendar Foundation

4.  Place in Time Stickers Alphabet

5.  Place in Time Chipboard 1

6.  Place in Time Chipboard 2

Other items:

1.  Kraft card stock

2. ribbons (reds and neutrals) - mine are from May Arts and Graphic45

3. brads (about 24 - mixture of colours - blue, red, brown, metallic)

4. Elastic string

5. Distress ink - red

6.  small tags

Ok, here we go!

STEP 1:  Cut the January Foundation paper in half, at the 6" mark.

STEP 2:  Trim the pieces such that there is no 'extra paper' around the frame. (this is so it will fit better on the page)

STEP 3:  Turn the January Cut Aparts paper to the side with the patterns, and cut just above the red "happy new year" border

STEP 4;  Now turn the lower portion of the January Cut-aparts paper over to the image side and cut just below the red border that says "ice skates" and "frosty"

STEP 5:  You should now have a piece that looks like this.  The rest of the Cut-aparts paper can be used for fussy cutting images.

STEP 6:  Trim the paper from STEP 5 such that it is the same width as your January foundation piece.

STEP 7:  They should look like this when lined up side by side:

STEP 8:  Take the half of the January foundation paper that has the "January" on it. Flip it to the back and fussy cut along the flourish in the corner (start from the top edge of the paper)

STEP 9:  Fussy cut to this amount:

STEP 10:  Glue the two halves of the January foundation paper onto your easel album page. (remember, it's page 2).  Arrange them to fit on the page. They will overlap a little in the centre.  Make sure not to glue down the fussy-cut flourish.

STEP 11:  Now glue on the piece of paper you cut from the January Cut-aparts in STEP 5.  Tuck it behind the fussy cut portion.

STEP 12:  Cut a piece of kraft coloured card stock 4 1/2 by 9" and ink the edges with red ink (I used Barn Door Distress ink)

STEP 13:  Cut out these items from the Calendar Foundation paper (small january calendar) and the leftover January Cut-aparts paper (all other items except tag)

STEP 14:  Tie a ribbon around the kraft cardstock (about 1" from the base), glue more ribbons above the red "happy new year" border, and glue the items onto the calendar as shown.  (only the kraft cardstock is popped up on foam dots). Make sure the kraft cardstock is tucked behind the flourish.

STEP 15:  Using a ruler, mark 1/2" intervals along both sides of the kraft cardstock (mark on the page, not on the kraft card stock).  I left a bit more space on the top (about 3/4" instead) to accommodate some words.  These are going to be the spacing for the 'lines' (NOTE:  The next few steps can be quite time consuming, so if you'd like a quicker version, consider drawing lines in pen, or just gluing string onto the cardstock to create lines, or even cutting out a piece of ledger paper to use in place of the cardstock.)

STEP 16:  Put brads along the sides of the kraft cardstock according to the spacing you marked.  Its nice to have them spaced at different distances from the kraft cardstock.  TIP: Don't fasten the brads tight. It will help later.

STEP 17: Create lines across the kraft cardstock using elastic string. wrap the ends of the string around the brads. No need to tie, just wind it around. (I like making these kinds of "lines" although they are more tedious because they allow you to tuck little things behind the strings also)

STEP 18: Tie ribbons to the tags as you wish, then glue them onto the page as shown.

STEP 19:  Glue on the other images with foam dots

STEP 20:  Add in the word "JANUARY" using the alphabet stickers - I glued mine on with foam dots.  For the word "IN", I matted the letters on spare pattern paper before gluing it on.

STEP 21:  Use the alphabet stickers to spell the word "What's UP".  Mat it on spare pattern paper before gluing onto the kraft card stock

STEP 22: Write numbers in the January calendar and Use small buttons / bling to highlight special dates.

STEP 23:  Add chipboard elements (I tried to keep things quite flat because there are many more pages to go and if every page is super chunky, the calendar probably wouldn't close very nicely)

STEP 24:  Use stickers and handwriting to record important January events

STEP 25: DONE!

I hope you had fun! :)  Its gonna be awesome to see the calendar coming together page by page!

Keep checking on the Graphic45 blog everyday for all the remaining pages to complete your calendar! :)