2012 Desk Calendar

Each year I try to make a desk calendar for my hubby at work, since he's away from my son and me all day, I try to think of something unique that will brighten his day throughout the year of pictures of us.

I designed most of these pages using free digital scrapbook paper I found online from Free Digital Scrapbooking. They also have papers, embellishments, shapes, alphabets- although I prefer to use free fonts I have downloaded.

For the months of April and June I decided to take a short-cut and edit a little bit of Erica's design from over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. Her pages were amazing, but I wasn't looking to go that big, so I did a little Photoshop work. (My printed paper size was 3 1/2 x 6 inches tall.)

It's fun to watch my son grow up, and I always use photos from last year's month. Like for February 2012 I used a photo taken in February 2011.

I was going to make it like this one I found on Pinterest.

Source: anounceofcreativity.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I didn't exactly follow the instructions so it came out more like an accordion, rather than a star. Oh well, it still works- I just gave it some of my own flair! 

The actual images are on the slideshow below, the photos of the calendar together are above. I started the calendar in February 2012, and ended it in January of 2013. That's only because that's how the last calendar ended and it's a little helpful to do it this way because of Christmas season being so crazy and January is a little slower. I used silver card-stock, because I got some for Christmas from my sister-in-law who works at a print shop!

View all the calendar pages on this slideshow. 

Don't get me wrong, I love making paper crafts and creating with my hands from nothing, back in 2010 I spent six hours on one project- a present for my parents! See that post.  But, from time to time, enjoy some digital scrap-booking. This also gives me time and creativity to figure things out on my own in Photoshop, rather than my smart husband telling me how to do something easier/ faster. Although I went to school for Graphic Design, I will admit it hasn't been my favorite program to work with in the past, but it's growing on me!