I am playing catch up with the posts for this years CD Calendar. I didn't post a few of them during that time I was in KY taking care of my mother.
It's about time to start thinking of ideas for next year's calendar. This is the biggest project I do all year because it takles so many stamps and ink to do all 12 pages and I have to be sure I am not duplicating ink colors or stamps for the different months and I also have to have enough blocks for all of the stamps. It's quite a juggling act. Here's a little info on how I make it all come together:
I print out the pages on our white cardstock. My friend and up line, Catherine Harwood, creates the page templates every year and puts them on her blog 321 Stamp. I'm so grateful she does this. Thanks Catherine!
As I begin to create the designs for the pages I first do them on sheets of copy paper with the calendars printed on them. I do this because it often takes a few tries to get the design just how I want it and I don't want to waste our good cardstock. Once I have the design I like I then create it on our white cardstock. I put a little label on the ink pad so that I know that color is being used already.
I try to keep the designs easy to duplicate with no or very few instructions. Most stampers can look at the design and know what to do. If there are specific instructions I list them on the box (see below). I also try to keep the designs easy enough so that it doesn't take a lot of time since they are doing 12 different pages.
I keep a list of each month with the stamps, ink, and anything else needed.
When I do the class I put all of the supplies for each month and the designed sample page in a plastic shoe box and line them up on a table. Stampers receive the pages for the number of calendars they want to make and then pick up any one of the available boxes. They take the box to their workspace and stamp their page(s) for that month. Once finished they return the box to the table and pick up another one. I limit this class to 10 people so that no one is having to wait for a box and no one is sharing supplies. It is one of my favorite classes.
Thanks for stopping by,
