A NEW YEAR

When I discovered the Desktop Display Calendar Case on page 22 of the Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalog, I immediately decided to create calendars for the members of Linda's Stamp-In Club
for Christmas. Each year, I make something a little more special for my members to show them how much I appreciate them.

The Calendar Cases are meant to be used in conjunction with the Designer Calendar shown on
the same page. I decided to make my calendars a bit more personal and hands-on. In other words, I wanted to make them, not just slide the darling calendar pages inside the Calendar
Case and call it done.

I printed small monthly calendars off the Internet, and proceeded to enhance each of the Naturals White pages with appropriate stamping. Unfortunately, after I glued the monthly calendar onto the page and stacked 12 of them together, they could not be inserted into the slit to contain them in the case. The pile was just a tad too thick. Gulp. I had already spent a few hours on them. Now what? I wanted them to all be contained within the case, and this was not going to work. Put on thinking cap.

Being a fairly new lover of My Digital Studio, I set out to give that a try. Within the program
are calendars that can be used in MDS projects. You are able to choose the type you want,
change the year, the font, the size, etc., until you have what you need.

I used the digital brush stamps to "stamp" appropriate monthly images on each page of my calendar. I am so pleased with how they turned out. And they fit perfectly within the Desktop Display Calendar Case. (The cool thing is that the cases will be available beyond the end of
the Holiday Catalog, which is January 2.)

This is how the completed calendar looks when it's closed, just lying flat.

Here it is with January inside the open case and all the other months arrayed around it. 

Of course, all the months, when stacked together, fit just right inside the case.

It was really a lot of fun to create this unique calendar in MDS. The stamps could be resized, tilted and recolored. I even used more than one color on five of the months: July, September, October, November and December. And, I now have it saved on my computer, so if I need an extra calendar, I can just print it out without hauling out all my traditional stamping supplies. 

Ah, the modern age.

Smiles.