Perpetual Birthday Calendars Hot Off The Presses!

Yo!  (Head's up:  photo heavy, seriously boring, unless you're interested in the subject.)

As some of you know or noticed, I have a tab at the top of this page entitled "My Calendars" with photos of some previous calendar covers I've done.  Recently, I posted that I was doing a dozen more to sell at a small shop in town and some of you asked if I would post more pictures, including pictures of the inside, and provide more information.

First, the details.

What is a perpetual birthday calendar?

Coming in many shapes, a perpetual birthday calendar is simple a hanging calendar, or a book, or (I suppose) even a desk calendar that is blank except for the months of the year. Some online companies make them and the monthly pages are decorated in various styles.*

For my calendars, I used a 'blank' calendar purchased through Stampin' Up!. My understanding is that SU! no long carries these blank perpetual birthday calendars, but you may be able to find some from SU! demonstrators' stock, or on E-Bay, etc.  This will be my last batch because I don't know of any other company that sells blank white calendars.

I did notice that SU! is now selling a digital version of the calendar ~ no doubt everyone will eventually embrace that. Right now, I still prefer embracing my pen and looking at a real calendar on my wall. I'm a visual person, not a virtual person. Not yet, anyway.

Here is a picture of the front of the blank calendar.  I apologize for the stinky photos, cloudy day here.  The calendars are not beige, or gray, the are bright Whisper White.

As it happens, when I was making last year's batch of calendars, one of them missed the Quality Control Department and was printed without the month of April.   I contacted SU! and they immediately sent me another one.  Not wanting to waste it, I am using it myself, with April handwritten on the back of March. I never got around to decorating mine, which is just as well, because now I can show you how the blank months look:

The blank SU! calendar is on the right, and you can get an idea of how long/wide it is, since it's hard to tell in a stand-alone photo.  You can also see where I have written names on the lines of peeps whose birthdays are on those days (in this case, in August).   You can see that I hang it next to a "regular" calendar, because I still need a regular calendar for appointments and such.

So that's how it works. You can add peoples easily. And when January comes around, you just turn it over and start the whole year over again.  The whole idea of a perpetual calendar is that you no longer have to rewrite all those birthdays (and anniversaries) year-after-year onto your regular calendar. I wish I'd known of such a thing 40 years ago!  I mean, I've seen those old-fashioned Victorian "birthday books," but I'd never seen an "in-your-face-hang-on-your-wall" birthday calendar, which is the only type that would get my attention!

Again, sorry for the photo crappiness.  Apparently, I don't even have a Quality Control Department!


There are a couple of enlargements or spotlights in the collage, in an attempt to show how fabtastic the paper is.  Honestly, spending all that time and effort making the fronts and backs . . . oh, I do the backs, too.  Here's a sample of one:

I suppose doing the fronts and backs is really silly, because once you hang it on the wall, you never see either of those pages again!  But, of course, making them pretty is part of what impulses the prospective buyer and since pretty is my hobby, I must say it's fillfulling to see the whole stack smiling back at me, happy in their lush colorful coats.

Here are photos of how I pep up the blank insides.  The one thing I would most appreciate, if I were a buyer, is having the month stamped again at the bottom.  It makes it lots easier when you are leafing through your calendar looking for a month to add a birthday.

 *There are prolly several online places to buy perpetual calendars.  One that is tops with Mr. Google is Galison.com.

If you would like to buy one of these from me, I'm okay with that.  I have no order to fill at the shop and so it doesn't matter to me if you buy one or someone coming into the shop buys one.  The blank SU! calendars are were $8.  The shop sells my calendars for $24, of which I get $16.  So that's my price to you, $16.  Plus, actual  postage!  I am happy to send it to you and enclose an invoice.  First come, first served, and you have to order by Monday, December 10th, since I need to get them in the shop asap.  Just send me a direct email (darnell dot knauss at gmail dot com) and let me know which one you would like and I'll let you know if it is still available.

Okay?  I hope that answers any questions you guys had.  Lemeno if not.

~~~

Enjoy your day!   No, seriously, enjoy your day.  I get to go back to making cards!  And maybe some tags.

As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.  Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

WOYWW 182

Welcome to Wednesday!

 

I missed the desk parade last week because I was too busy with Thanksgiving to go visiting many of you, so I'm glad to be back snooping around Ms. Julia's delightful What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday (WOYWW).  Here's my current busyness for you:

What's this mess as you walk in the door?  Cupboards open and pencils strewn about and doors a jar and a sunder?  Containers open with stamps free to walk about?  It cannot be the Playhouse, Shirley? 

Yup, it is!  I'm making a dozen new perpetual birthday calendars which sell like hotcakes in the little boutique in town.  I've got to get them in soon or I'll miss the Christmas holiday gift-seekers.  It's a good thing they sell so well because it's a bit of work and bother pulling out all the various holiday-appropriate stamps to give each month's bare and lifeless page some personality. 

I'd never even heard of such a calendar until a couple of years ago and now I think it's the smartest thing ever.  I'm made quite a lot of them and even have a tab on the top of this page if you'd like to see more.  (The blank calendars are made by Stamping Up!)  I love not having to copy over a year's worth of birthdays and anniversaries onto the new year's calendar.  Of course, the young perples do all their calendaring on their digido smart phones and computers so this may be my last batch.

 

Speaking of young people, has anyone else noticed that Korean phenom Psy's Gangham Style dancing looks a lot like a dance we did in the 1900s called "The Pony?"  It's terrific that the kids today take it to a fantastic new athletic level.  We just pranced around pretending we were on ponies, without the worry of falling off.  Of course, we protected our massively ratted hair with two cans of Aqua Net hair spray in the unlikely event we did fall off.

 

On a more serious note, I want my British friends to know they are in my thoughts and prayers as they recover from the severe flooding there. 

Happy WOYWWing, everyone!  I hope to get around to see you and, of course, if you get here first, I'll return the flavor.

 

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Have you ever gone to someone's blog and been unexpectedly surprised to see your own name and read lovely compliments about yourself?  I've had the pleasure a few times and today I would like to thank Geri of Manitoba Stamper for the nice things she said about my zany long-winded blog.  I happily return the love.  Geri's work is extraordinary and it's worth your time to click over and be amazed!  One of the awesome things I love about this community is that we often leave compliments on our blogs about other crafters without even letting them know.  So I thank any of the rest of you, too, if you've been so kind and I didn't even know it!  Mwah!

 

Finally, with delight I ask you to help me welcome CarysL from CarysL Cards.  Get it?  CarysL, like, carousel!  Adorable.  CarysL is another crafter brand new to Blogland, so I know she will appreciate your visits.

 

Enjoy your day!   No, seriously, enjoy your day.  Take a second to be thankful you don't have to spend an hour ratting your hair!

As always, thank you for stopping by to visit.   Special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower or leave a comment!

 

Perpetual Birthday Calendars

Great gift idea!  Click on the tab above entitled "Calendars" to see some ideas for the Stampin' Up! perpetual birthday calendar template.  More ideas can be found here on my Smugmug site.

Enjoy!