Friday, December 2, 2011

Mark your Calendar!


It goes without saying that 2012 will be here before we know it and what better way to keep track of your days than to custom create a beautiful hand stamped calendar? With all of Flourishes' beautiful botanicals and the A Year in Flowers series, there are so many ways to beautify your own calendar and truly make it your own! Just like in years past, Flourishes is offering a calendar created by Marcella Hawley designed for just that reason! It's available to download right from their site and is a bargain at just $2!

Want to see what I created with this new calendar? On to my creation! I found this frame at the dollar store and thought -- I could dress that up! The calendar file is 4 by 6", which makes it perfect for a frame!

January Calendar....

I knew I wanted to use the A Year in Flowers stamp sets to deck my creations out but I wanted to use the technique of masking to make sure I could layer my images to line the top of my calendar. To mask, you simply stamp your image on a post-it, cut it out with detail scissors, stamp and using that mask to protect the image you stamped when you stamp over top. It creates a beautiful layered look! If you want to see this technique in action, just click HERE for a few different tutorials that I did over on the Flourishes blog. My actual creations were as simple as stamping with Tuxedo Black Memento Ink, masking, and stamping until the top of my calendar looked like I wanted. I then colored with Copic markers. (You can see the colors I used below.) I will say when stamping and masking, it's not a bad idea to have a fine tip multi-liner like THIS. Why? Because sometimes you will have a little gap between the images you stamp created by the post-it note. A multi-liner will help you just create a line to complete the image. It just polishes off your creation! On to the rest of my "show and tell!"

February Calendar...


March Calendar...


April Calendar...
And here's a peek at the rest of the pages I have yet to color! I have some work cut out for me -- thank goodness it's fun! ;-)  I'll try to show off the final project when I finish it up! 

Here's a look at the Copic Collections that I used....




I also used some of the new Copic Colors, B60, B63, B68 and then used B0000 and B000 to highlight around some of my images. 

Today all of the gals with Flourishes used this fun calendar blank to fashion some pretty inspiring creations! You'll have to hop around to check them out!

Want some help on how to buy and download this file? Just click HERE to check out the Flourishes blog for more details!

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you have a wonderful and restful weekend on tap. Happy stamping!


~Julie

15 comments:

Glenda said...

I have this set of stamps....I must use them again! You have inspired me to make another calendar just for me!

Dawn B. said...

Oh my gosh you have been busy. I LOVE that frame. What a great gift this will make. You knocked this out of the park.

Heather Rogers said...

I loved these when they came out and I still love them. I don't have all the Year in Flower sets. They are so versatile. Your calenders are stunning Julie. :)
Hugs~

BTW...I love your new blog look!

Amanda said...

Wow! Julie, these are absolutely Gorgeous!! I love your Copic skills!! I need to use my FLIP rewards and just get a set of Copics every month with my FLIP code!! I'm ashamed I'm so envious of your skills and collection ;)

I love your new blog look by the way :)

Patti J said...

Wow, these are beautiful! What a classy gift for someone special :) Thanks for sharing...

Leslie Miller said...

I'm sure seeing some gorgeous calendars today! I love how you've stamped all the images in the same manner. You've got a lot of coloring ahead of you, and some beautiful coloring already done!

denise g. said...

The frame pales in comparison to your flower coloring. Them's mighty purty posies. Please plan to show off the last 2/3 of the year when it's all done. Like the new photo of you and the kraft-y blog decoration. What I do not like is that I have already had to "adjust" some s-n-o-w. Got about 7" Tuesday night. It is probably about time to count up the number of days until spring...

Bev J. said...

Beautiful calendar pages-great coloring.

Jo said...

Very Nice! Just Beautiful!!

ChristineCreations said...

Girl these are stunning! I love how finished they all look in the frame!

Stacy Morgan said...

Julie these look fabulous! Yes you do have some coloring to do yet. hee hee

Anonymous said...

a beautiful calendar! thanks for stopping by to comment on my BBB card.

Diane said...

Such beautiful work as always Julie!

Tammy Hershberger said...

These are STUNNING, Julie! GORGEOUS flowers, and absolutely fabulous coloring!

Janine said...

Gorgeous Julie!!