A calendar for 2012

Every Christmas Louisa makes family calenders for her parents and husband. It’s a useful presant and the grandparents love the family photographs and show them off to all  their friends who come to visit. “My husband hangs his calender in is office – it has all the important dates already filled in (like our wedding anniversary !) so he  doesn’t forget them. Each year the calenders are a little different . For example, last year I used photos of our first family trip  overseas that we had recently enjoyed. This year I made a special a special recipe calender for my mom. She loves to cook and  try out new things, so for each month I added a recipe along with a different photo of her grandsons.”

Calendar
You will need
• metal coat hanger
• Grey primer spray paint
• blue spray paint (or a colour of your choice )
• 2 bulldog clips
• self-adhesive photo corners (clear or black)
• 12 x A3 thin white cardboard
• 12 jumbo-sized family photos (black and white or colour -ask the photo shop to put a white border around each  photograph )
• calendar template on our website

1 Spray the coat hanger with grey primer and set aside to dry. Now apply two coats of blue spray paint, or the colour of  your choice, leaving the paint to dry between coats. Set aside to dry completely.
2 Download the templates then print each month onto a a separeate piece of cardboard.
3 Attach the photo corners to the pages and secure a different photograph to each page.
4 Write a short recipe on the lines under the photo’s. Alternatively,if you prefer not to use the recipe you can write  a quote or add a caption about each photo.
5 Use the bulldog clips to clamp the pages together and hang them from the coat hanger.

Packaging
For the gift tag, cut an A4 piece of white cardboard in half and then fold on of the pieces in half again to form a card.
Stick the family photograph onto the front of the card and write a personal message inside. Packaging for this gift is  quite difficult as it is an awkward shape. Remove the coat hanger and pack it with the calender pages and bulldog clips into a large  flat whit box or wrap in white paper. Tie a blue or red ribbon around the parcel and attach the photograph card to the ribbon.  Once the gift has been unwrapped the calender can be reassembled.