Tuesday Tutorial: 2015 Desktop Photo Calendar by Nathalie

Happy Tuesday CTK fans! Every year I create a different photo calendar for my parents and every year I use a kit to make it. The one I made for this tutorial is using the leftovers from the January add-on kit "New Beginnings" (still available in the store). I don't own any fancy printer or die-cutting machine so this is pretty low tech!

This is what you will need:
1. a Tolsby frame from Ikea (but I also saw at the last CHA that Tim Holtz was coming out with his own version!):

2. A book ring of 1" or more
3. Twelve square photos trimmed to 2.25x2.25"

4. Twelve (13 if you want to make a cover) pieces of card stock and or patterned paper cut to 3.25x4.75" and any leftover embellishments (stickers, flairs, sequins, etc.)

5. A computer and printer

Step 1: Go to this list of 2015 calendar templates and download the "Blank 2015 Desktop Calendar" (it's free). 

Side note: You can find many other templates online. I picked this one because I prefer the European way of starting the week on Monday. You could also use mini paper calendars or stickers like SRM Stickers offers.

Step 2: Print the month of March (page 4 only) in black & white on a sheet of copy paper in order to create your template. Looking through a window figure out where your patterned paper needs to go and trace it:

Now put it back through your printer with the patterned paper attached to the copy paper with washi tape. Repeat this last step taping a new piece of patterned paper and selecting a new month, once for each month:

Step 3: Now the fun begins. Add layers and photos to each page:

Step 4: Before you start really embellishing your pages, punch a hole on the top of each one for your book ring:

Step 5: Embellish and create a cover if you choose to:

Step 6: Put the pages in order on the ring and attach to the top of the frame. Voilà!

As always, feel free to ask any question in the comments below and I will answer them there as well. Also, if you decide to use this tutorial, please please please link your calendar in the comments as well because we would LOVE to see it!

Merci!