The 2015 version of this calendar is available for download now!
Hello 2014! I’m sorry that I’ve been MIA since Christmas, but I enjoyed a lot of wonderful family time and I hope you all did as well. {Take a look at my Instagram feed if you’d like to see a little of how we celebrated.} But even while I was away from the blog, I was busy, busy, busy. We celebrated Beckett’s second birthday yesterday, and I’m madly preparing for his Sesame Street themed birthday party this Saturday {details about that will be forthcoming}.
I also took some time this past week to come up with a solution to my need for a calendar in my kitchen, and I’m so excited about how it turned out that I want to share it with all of you in the form of a download. I, like many of you, I am sure, use my iPhone to keep track of my calendar appointments and I use various apps to keep track of many of my lists and to do items. I’ve never been good at writing things down on one of those twelve month paper calendars that you hang on the wall, nor am I fan of how much space they take up. But as I rely more and more on electronic devices for calendar-keeping, I have realized that what I am missing is a simple calendar that I can glance at quickly for reference when I’m on the phone. And now I have it!
Before I left my job to stay home for a few years with my boys, I used to make a desktop jewel case calendar as a Christmas gift for everyone at my law firm each year. The calendar had one page for each month, and it featured the firm’s logo and photos of the firm’s art collection. All of the monthly calendar pages fit neatly inside of a CD jewel case, which served as a display stand for the calendar when the jewel case cover was flipped back. I (and most everyone else in my office) came to rely on this little calendar sitting right by my phone, and I referred to it constantly when talking with colleagues and clients.
Now that I am staying home with my boys, I realized how much I miss that calendar by the phone. I had planned to make myself a jewel case calendar for the kitchen counter top, but then remembered that I have a pretty silver photo easel that’s been tucked away in a closet and I realized that this easel would make the perfect stand for my little calendar.
When I first sat down to design the calendar, I hit a block. There were so many possibilities that I couldn’t decide where to begin. I knew I wanted the calendar to be colorful, and I wanted something to inspire me. After playing around with lots of design ideas, I realize that nothing inspires me more than traveling!
That’s why my 2014 desktop kitchen counter top calendar features the skylines of some of my favorite travel destinations, from Sydney to Madrid, London to New York, and Costa Rica to Paris. The only destination on the calendar that I have yet to visit is South Africa – but if all goes as planned I’ll be there on a safari before the end of 2014! And of course, I couldn’t leave out my lovely home of Denver!
To make the calendar even more useful as a quick reference tool, I highlighted the dates of major holidays – the ones that I most often need to keep in mind when planning gatherings with friends. In addition to the major celebration holidays, I included those that many get off of work, such as President’s Day and MLK Day. While my husband and I have never been fortunate enough to get all of those three day weekends, many of our friends do and use those as times to travel, so I like to keep those dates in mind when planning events.
I didn’t want to clutter up each calendar page with the names of all of the holidays, so I instead made a holiday cheat sheet which I will keep tucked behind all of the other calendar pages on my easel, but which I can quickly pull out for reference when need be.
I also decided to add one additional page to the calendar – a birthday reference sheet. Since I knew I wanted to share this calendar with all of you as a download, rather than typing in the birthdays of my friends and family, I designed the birthday page with blank lines to make it easy for you to write in the birthdays that you need to remember each month.
Now I know that not everyone has a silver easel just sitting around waiting to be converted into a calendar stand, but I bet just about all of you have an extra CD jewel case around the house somewhere, so I designed each of my calendar pages to fit perfectly in a jewel case just for you!
For those who love to travel and daydream about future vacation destinations, I hope you’ll be inspired by the skylines on this calendar! The 2015 version of this calendar is available for download now! I recommend printing on a thick cardstock paper, and I love the way mine looks with a glossy finish. The files includes crop marks to make it quick and easy for you to cut the pages exactly to size.
Happy 2014 to everyone! I have so much in store for this year, including a big announcement that will be coming up before the end of the week, so check back!
