This time of year we tend to feel behind on just about everything: projects, emails, present wrapping, cleaning, proper hygiene… but by some miracle, we’re actually ahead in one department: making our homemade family calendar.
As many of you know, for the last five years we’ve whipped up a simple-yet-colorful calendar in Photoshop. A few of you (like Lauren and Alexandra) have even asked if we had this year’s ready yet (since we like to share the customizable template, in case you need a last minute gift). So I’m relieved to exclaim “the deed is done!”
It doesn’t usually serve as our note-riddled family calendar (that’s what Sherry’s desktop planner is for) but it’s more of warm & fuzzy overview of the month that we can glance at and smile while quickly checking dates or counting down to certain events. Each year we inject some meaningful elements – inside jokes in 2010, family stats in 2011, Clara pics in 2012, and sort of a hybrid of those in 2013.
We loved 2013’s pairing of Instagram photos with funny Clara quotes so much that we decided to go that route again – just with a new design. And for the first time we designed around a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper to eliminate any need to cut off excess, and to allow for a bit more space/function for the actual date part of the calendar.
The bigger size also made room for a bigger picture size: 4 x 4″ – which just so happens to be a standard print size for sites like Snapstagram or PicPlum. So if you don’t trust your home printer to do your photos justice, you can spend $6 on real prints and stick them right on to each page. That’s what we’re planning to do, so we’ve printed all of ours with just a gray placeholder box while we wait for our prints to arrive (we ordered from Snapstagram this time).
And as usual, we’re sharing our template so you guys can download the calendar and tailor it to your own photos/quotes/worldly desires. I’ve tried to make it less complicated this year (i.e. fewer layers to mess with), so…
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- If you can edit .PSD files, you can just download the Photoshop version (click that link to do so) with ready-to-edit text in the quote area (you may need to download both fonts used: Adamas and Multicolore).
- If Photoshop isn’t your jam, you can download a PDF version (click that link to do so) where the quote area is left blank (that way you can hand-write in your own text).
In both versions, you’ll need to add your own photo either digitally or by attaching a real 4 x 4″ print like we plan to do with ours.
And just for kicks, here’s a look at the quotes and photos that we chose for each of our 12 months this year. Kinda makes us wish there were more months in the year, cuz Clara can be pretty quotable. That and it’d probably give me more time to squeeze in a shower.
What are your calendar plans for 2014? Do you have a go to source every year? Do you prefer a purely functional planner or wall calendar with lots of space to scribble? Do you go for something sweet and decorative, just for checking dates at a glance? Are you one of those 100% electronic folks with everything on your phone? Or do you fall somewhere in between? One more question. Who knew there were so many questions to ask about calendars?
Lori Anderson says
Soooo cute! Love the font choices. But where did you get the fun BIG letters for each month (with those cool triangular shapes in them)?
YoungHouseLove says
That’s in the graphic and linked to in the post for ya. It’s called Adamas and we rasterized it and added colors to certain facets of it in photoshop. That was fun actually!
xo
s
Lori Anderson says
Thanks! The preview for the font wasn’t showing up for the webpage you linked to. It all makes sense now. Really appreciate it!
YoungHouseLove says
So glad!
xo
s
Kristin says
The calendar is cute but I feel kinda bad for John…. how come Mommy and Burger both got some love on the calendar, but none for Daddy?
YoungHouseLove says
John and I just picked our favorite quotes and photos together (he’s actually in more pics than I am – Jan, June, and Nov). Clara says half of these quotes to each of us, so even if it doesn’t say “daddy, are you thinking what I’m thinking…” we remember that they had that convo (hence their pic together eating ice cream :)
xo
s
Chaney says
Oh my gosh, this is adorable! I love the quotes from Clara – you can always count on that kid to say something hilarious (and amazingly logical – like the feet clapping noise while skipping). Thanks for sharing, y’all!
Victoria Ross says
This is amazing haha:) absolutely love the calender idea. Going to have to put some of the awkward/silly things my own son has said onto one!
Cheers
Victoria
Ps. Your blog rocks. Keep up the good work!
Alicia says
So cute! I think this might be the best one yet! We’re members of the San Diego zoo, so we get “Zoo News” magazine. The Dec issue always has a calendar, so that always gets put in my cubicle. My boyfriend’s parents also made me a calendar with pictures of our cat, so that hangs in our kitchen. They’re both pretty much decoration only, Google calendar handles all of the important planning!
Emily says
I always download the fonts you recommend (kind-of a font fan here) and noticed that the font you used is actually called Multicolore from freetypography.com — not Multicore as you mentioned. Just thought I’d help others out who were looking for the cute font(s)! http://freetypography.com/2013/01/10/free-font-multicolore/
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much for the tip! Will have to update that when we’re back home!
xo
s
Sayward says
Oh man, I always love your calendars. My nice is 2.5 and over Thanksgiving she watched The Little Mermaid for the first time…
Me: That’s Prince Eric. Ariel thinks he’s so handsome.
Noelle: My daddy is handsome!
Me: Yep, daddy’s handsome too.
Noelle: NO, my daddy is MORE handsome.
So cute. Anyway, I hope you guys have the BEST Christmas! Merry Christmas!!! <3 <3 <3
YoungHouseLove says
So cute!
xo
s
Chase says
This is seriously so cute. I love the quotes and what a great time capsule to look back on as she gets bigger :)
Olivia says
Thanks–I needed that laugh today! Now I can’t wait to have kids so that I can hear funnies like these on a daily basis…
Sara S. says
Very cute! I love that you keep track of the Claraisms… they are priceless! :)
Betsy says
Oh my goodness, she is so quotable. I absolutely love this!
Michelle says
How cute is this calendar! This will be perfect – I was planning on making my in-laws a calendar with family photos and procrastinated too long. I needed more time than I realized to pull all the photos together in time for the Shutterfly deadline. Anyway, thanks for the template!!
Laurel says
Those are the best quotes ever. So original.
Julianne says
Such a cute family tradition. I’m going to try it myself this year! I love how you’ve pulled it together. We’ve got some nice family shots from our travels over the last year, that will make for a nice reminder over these next cold, drab months. ;O)
I have a quick question though…I’m trying to download the photoshop one and I can only seem to get January to download. Any tips on what I might be doing wrong? Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
All the calendars are different layers in the same doc, so if you hide the January one you’ll see February under it, etc. Hope it helps!
xo
s
Julianne says
Okay, thanks….I will give it a try! :O)
Kelly says
Those are some of the cutest quotes from any kid EVER. And I have 4, so that’s saying something :)
XO/Kelly @ Our Cone Zone
Christy says
To die for, and that’s not often said about a *calendar*. Her Home Depot quote had me guffawing out load (but softly, so the boss can’t hear…)
Ashley G says
Such a fun calendar! And I think you may have the most awesome little girl ever! Those quotes are priceless!
Kelly says
You totally need to make a book with her quotes. It’ll pay for her college. So adorable!! Great calendar too. :-)
MonW says
Very neat design. You went much farther than we did.
I agree that some of her more profound quotes deserve permanent wall art status. And some pretty drawings of hers to illustrate them.
Multiple years ago, Hubby and I realized we were always surprised by the family’s extended dates-birthdays and anniversaries. He had progressed to a dslr. We decided to turn our favorite photos he took into a calendar for our extended family. [Took me a bit longer to grow into a dslr and the appropriate file sizes.] The calendar had no one theme- just places and things we saw during the past year. (Yes we do consider the calendar needs during the year.) We’d print all the special dates on small clear address labels and stick those on the calendar; [ex: Name or full name if confusion is possible and birth year, or both names + year for anniversaries]. The extra blank calendars we would send to select friends. Bulk ordering for best prices yielded extra blank calendars. We used to label who took which photo and the photo info on each picture, but we got lazy and more hurried in recent years and leave that off. This handles our gifting for the extended family- not too expensive, pretty and functional. If we stop this tradition, there will be riots.
Our calendars have proven quite popular among family, and friends have reported queries on where to buy one like theirs.[sorry, we do not sell them.] We usually have a blend of flowers, transportation, animals, scenes, and an abstract or two. Fun to have folks guess on the abstract. We do label the location of the images taken. We used lulu.com this year and last year and do the 8×10 landscape wall size. We do have the option now of using three images in a triptych style on a month instead of a single image. That requires 3 vertical images instead of our normal horizontal images and allows use of more than just 13 images on the calendar; cover + 12 months. Our calendars were shipped out to family this week. At least one friend uses our calendar for her planning and appointments.
I just use our copy of the calendar for art and date reminders in the family.
I use a google calendar or calendars to track things. My phone nags me, unlike the wall calendar than can become invisible. ;)
YoungHouseLove says
That sounds awesome!
xo
s
MMingo says
OHEMGEE!!!! Cuteness overload. Seriously, that Clara is quite the character. I love your calendars. So creative! Happy Holidays to you all and all the best in 2014 :)
Michelle @ A Healthy Mrs says
So, so, SO cute! Clara’s quotes are amazing :)
Soffia says
Hmmmmmm….allow me to play detective!
Jason, are you giving us a hint, namewise for the little one on the way?? ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that funny?! We didn’t even notice that Jason was in the calendar month initials until someone else mentioned it!
xo
s
Jeanna says
This year’s version is my hands down favorite! Love the quotes :)
Lindsay H says
Echoing and screaming everyone else…her quotes are hilarious and glad that you have captured them forever!
Anne says
Killer quotations!! Oh, she slays me. :-)
Karen says
Hey Sherry. It’s happened twice in here already, but I keep getting a mini pop-up window to do a “survey” – I’ve got an image of it for you. Don’t know how to send to you. Do you guys have a general email?
YoungHouseLove says
So sorry! We’re looking into that and hope to get it fixed today for ya! We have a few screen grabs already so we’re all set, but thanks so much for the heads up!
xo
s
charlotte m. says
Okay, the best part is the Clara-isms. I read them all and I love them. Kids are so funny.
Suls says
You guys are so generous to share these calenders with us! Quick question: I wanted to use the awesome 2012 calender for this year, but was wondering if it is way too complicated to change the days to work for 2014. Make sense?
YoungHouseLove says
Hmm I think you can try opening it and see if you can change those. It will probably take a while since everything has to shift, but if you get in the groove it hopefully won’t be too bad!
xo
s
Alycia Isaacson says
The Chompsticks picture had me crying I couldnt’ stop laughing. Such a great picture and the quote is so perfect.
Lizzyrae78 says
Those quotes melt my heart… I cant wait to have a baby :)
Wish us luck in 2014!
I so enjoy your blog and it inspires me so much.
Happy Holidays Young House Love!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, happy holidays and lots of luck!
xo
s
Rosanne says
That girl of yours,really cracks me up!
Linzy says
Holy cow, she’s adorable. She must have inherited that funny bone from her parents. Merry Christmas, guys.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Linzy! Merry Christmas to you too!
xo
s
Erica says
Hi guys!
I always love the photo calendars, but I’ve never made one of our own. What do you guys do with all the old calendars? Do you just collect them and put them in a box. I guess that’s why I haven’t done one, because I don’t know what use I could do with them afterward. Just wondering if you all had anything special that you all did with them.
YoungHouseLove says
Since ours have photos and quotes/facts/type that we love, we save them each year in a flat file box, just to look back on. I can’t believe this is the fifth year we’ve done one!
xo
s
Kristen says
That’s so cute, and I love her quotes, especially Novembers!
Callye says
January’s picture is too much cute to handle!
Theresa says
This is perfect, thank you! I’m going to print it for my brother in law and use pictures of my nephew from my sisters Instagram account! Happy Friday, have a great weekend!
YoungHouseLove says
So glad!
xo
s
Melissa says
LOVE all of the Clara quotes. and this calendar is adorable. I want to try to make one for a friend, so thanks for the template! :)
I do have one question though. How did you bind yours? or do you? (sorry in advance if this question was already answered)
Thanks again and Merry Christmas!! :)
YoungHouseLove says
We just punch holes along the hole guide we add (two of them) and hang it from small wall hooks. So each page is separate, and we can just flip a new one to the top of the hanging stack each month.
xo
s
Kelly says
Those quotes are amazing. June and November made me laugh out loud, and this was not even the first time I heard the Nov one.
I ordered calendars from Shutterfly as gifts for grandparents. It’s not cheap though! Maybe next year I’ll use the YHL template and save some bucks. Great job, you guys. I don’t know how this is possible, but you keep having better and better ideas/projects AND you keep adding new entire categories of projects. Seriously, I want to be you when I grow up… even though I’m a a couple years older than you.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, thanks so much Kelly, you’re so sweet! And your Shutterfly calendars sound awesome!
xo
s
keisha says
LOVE.
Jac says
My calendar would have the following quotes: ‘da’ ‘hallooo’ ‘ca’ ‘gollygollygolly’. Hmm. might need to wait a year or so, or have a four month calendar. I love Clara quotes…she needs a website just devoted to them with an Instagram pic or her own drawing to illustrate. Oh so cute.
November….brown colour + soft serve + potty quote…. Just me?
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Didn’t even think about that November “theme” – yikes!
xo
s
Jessica P. says
The Clara-isms are the absolute best part. I wrote down my son’s funny phrases when he was little, too, and those are our favorite scrapbook pages to reminisce over to this day. You will be so glad you have this record of Clara’s sweet and funny musings.
Dianne says
Sherry, I saw these amazing matte white mugs yesterday that had animal impressions on them with their cute little tails sticking out as the handle! Adorable and I instantly thought of you (well, not instantly, after I stuck the fox and moose in my cart). I searched online and found lots of hits (wanted to make sure you could get them before I teased you with them). They’re called mugtails and they are fabulous!
YoungHouseLove says
They sound awesome! Thanks for the tip!
xo
s
Liz says
What a cute idea! And that picture of Clara with the “chompsticks” cracks me up, haha!
Leila says
Clara is such a sweet, bright and funny kid… Can’t wait for her to meet her little brother. I’m having some serious baby fever right now so I enjoy being able to have the benefits of the cuteness even if I can’t make the leap to parenting today. :)
Amanda says
That’s the cutest calendar I’ve ever seen!! And I make one of my girls every year. I need to start saving up quotes for 2014!!!
Lisa E says
So cute!
Emily @ Life on Food says
OMG those quotes are adorable. I don’t know how there is any hate in the world with little people like Clara.
Abbie says
I adore Clara’s quotes! And definitely excited to find two new font websites :) Great idea!
Gretchen says
Oh, those quotes! They MAKE the whole calendar! I love seeing the world through those fresh, young eyes.
Dawn Lowe says
One of my favorite pastimes is reading Clara conversations out loud to my husband. We both enjoy them a lot. I love making my husband laugh (he has an amazing laugh!) and he finds Clara’s little tidbits as giggle worthy as I do. Please give that sweet girl a hug from us, she makes us smile. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, thanks Dawn! I’ll give her a squeeze for ya!
xo
s