Making my wall calendar

I thought I'd show some pics of my wall calendar made up.
I've been making these for about 15 years for my parents. It started with the artwork of my eldest daughter. I used to trim the art and glue it to A4 cardstock and then laminate it. Then I'd print the calendar pages with family dates on them and bind it all together.
I even organised it as a fundraiser at our local primary school for many years. The parents would send in their child's artwork and we'd laminate it and bind it with some calendar pages. It was a terrific fundraiser. It was great fun, too, except when we had a disaster with the laminator or bound the picture upside-down!
In recent years I've done family heritage pages instead, with a different picture for each month. Here's my 2009 version (yes, that's me on the left with my tongue sticking out!):

This year I'm using templates by Roadside Designs at Two Little Pixels (see earlier post).
I haven't finished all of the pages yet, but I've bound a few of them to show you how it looks:

I used to bind them with white combs but I was very happy to find clear combs at our local office supplier a few years ago.

To use these combs you need a comb binder like this:

I'm lucky that we have one at work. If you are not so lucky I imagine your local office supplier would offer a comb binding service. Here's a link to instructions about how to use a comb binding machine.

I love making calendars for the family. My family don't necessarily "get" scrapbooking, but they certainly enjoy the calendars. And it has been such a terrific way to share photos that are otherwise hidden away in old albums or slide boxes. I will never finish scanning old slides and documenting our family history but I CAN finish a calendar!

25 Days of Christmas

Oh my! This time of year always comes around so quickly and I am NEVER ready!
I've been doing a  photo-a-day and some how have fallen one month behind. Aagh!
To get me started on December I'm using these sweet templates by Roadside Designs. As a bonus they are free on her blog - one each day!
 

It has been a particularly busy week for me with a trip to Melbourne for a conference, apartment hunting with my eldest daughter, shopping, a school awards night, a progressive dinner with dessert at my house.

So you can imagine how handy these templates have been!

There is a story to the photos of the awards ceremony. We were very proud that our daughter was elected prefect. And very proud that it is something she really wants to do and will do well. So of course I needed to take photos. But in the chaos that as characterized this week I left my camera at home! By the time I'd retrieved it (and navigated through traffic jams and flooding...!!) we were already late for the ceremony and had to be escorted in. And what a shame that the few remaining seats were right in the middle near the front. Of course we made a bit of a spectacle trying to sneak in, but I got my photos and that's all that matters, right?! ;)

Apartment Hunting

My eldest daughter has had a year in student accommodation in the big city and is itching to move out. This week we took a trip to the city and met a friend she plans to share with. What a big adventure!

We were hunting in the "leafy suburbs". Some places would do just nicely, thank you. Some places just made me cringe. Funny how different they could look from the online photos! This was one place that took the girls' fancy:

And we had to stop for refreshments

 

And they had to update their friends about their progress

Apparently phones are good not only for communication but also navigation. And maps are SO old hat. And the mother was allowed to come as long as she sat in the back seat and didn't navigate and didn't say any "I told you so!"s.

So I sat in the back and looked at the map and watched in silence as we took many wrong turns.

TOLD YOU SO!

But it was a lesson in holding back and watching my young lady growing up and making her own decisions. And a lesson in letting her make her own mistakes and feel free to say "Whoops, sorry Mum" without being nagged. Which she did. And I am proud.

I think we both learned something very valuable this day!