If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’ve been posting color palettes every week for about a year. I take one of my photos and pair it with five or six blocks of color pulled from deep inside it’s pixels. I initially tried using Adobe’s Color tool to pull the colors automatically, but found I far preferred to create my own manually! Thank you, Photoshop!
Fairly quickly, these color palette posts became my most popular. Not just by the number of likes I get, but people take the time to actually TELL me. Yes, real-life interactions with people. In person! What? People actually speak directly to each other still? Take that, social media!
Since folks seem to enjoy my color swatches, I figured I should take it to the next level. I’m a stationery freak, so my mind always goes to note cards, note books, journals, calendars … wait a minute. That’s it! Calendars!
Wasn’t exactly sure how to approach it. So, Pinterest to the rescue! It was a PIN for a DIY Paint Chip Calendar that inspired me. Go search Pinterest for that and you’ll see what I’m talking about—it’s actually a neat idea itself. Grab a bunch of paint chips the next time you’re at Home Depot and you’re half-way there!
At any rate, it inspired me to fire up PhotoShop and start playing around. I started with one of my winter teasel photos. Just like with my Instagram posts, I snagged different colors from the pixels, but this time, but rather than a single line of blocks, I used the colors I selected to shade the date boxes. My initial attempt ended up being my February 2020 design!
If it works for one month, it’ll work for 12, right? I was off. I scoured my photo inventory for just the right photo for each month. I very carefully chose photos that I actually took during the month for which I planned to use them in the calendar. Wanted to make sure that each month would feature something you might actually see at that time of year in the real world. Well … the real world in the glorious mid-Atlantic, at least.
You'll note that I used a Monday to Sunday format so that Saturday and Sunday would share the same color. I like being able to easily spot those ever-important weekends, don't you? You're welcome.
I finished designing all of the pages this past June and to avoid any last-minute surprises, I went ahead and ordered a test print. Had to make sure it was worthy of a listing, didn't I? I was pleasantly surprised with the result! We hung it on our kitchen bulletin board in July and are currently enjoying the October 2019 page. Here's a peek at what it's going to look like next May!
The calendar is 11”x17”, so it's large enough to be useful, without taking up an entire wall. Even the darkest colored date blocks are light enough to write-on, though black ink will probably be your best bet ;-). Even though it's printed back-to-back, it's very thick card-stock, so you can still use your Sharpie to capture your special dates without worrying about it bleeding through. The pages are spiral bound and have a drilled hole for easy hanging! I’ve even included an extra month—you're covered through January 2021. You know, just in case need a little extra time to get yourself a new calendar. There’s also a 2020 full year calendar on the back of the front cover. Go ahead and cut that page out and hang it separately for an easy, at-a-glance view of the entire year!
You’ll find my 2020 Nature’s Palette Calendar at AnneCorcoran Studio on Etsy. If you click on the image at left, it'll take you right to the listing!
Looking for something slightly smaller? Be sure to expand and read the full product description. You’ll find links to my Nature’s Palette 5”x7” and 8”x10” desk calendar listings.
Happy shopping!
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