December 13, 2004

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  I got all my “away” shopping done today!! I should be ready to ship it
  out on Wednesday.  I just have one item left to finish — I make
  calendars for my extended family each year.  I make the calendar
  months in PrintShop on 8 1/2 x 14 pages then I affix a 5×7 to the top
  part of every month.  This year I am making 6 calendars (one is
  ours).

  And it gets confusing because each calendar does not get the same set
  of 12 pictures.  If we have vacationed to any of my family during
  the year (which we have for every
  family this year),  I like to use pictures from that vacation for
  that family for some of the calendar pages — and then I supplement
  pictures of the 4 girls together taken through the year, except on each
  of their birthday months (Feb, Mar, May & July) which I use a
  picture of just each one alone.
  Sound confusing… not really.

  This year I used 23 different pictures for the 6 calendars.  I
  have a system down that makes me not get it all confused as I have been
  doing this now for years.  Through the year I’m constantly
  thinking of the calendar with every picture I take, so that helps.

  Then I take the completed calendars down to Kinkos and have them
  laminate a 8 1/2 x 11 cover page, then spiral bind the top and drill a
  hole for hanging.

  So I have this beautiful, personalized gift of not just my girls but of
  their family incorporated into it as well, and because the printing of
  the 5×7 pictures at Sam’s is so inexpensive (like 50 something cents a
  picture), with the Kinko’s bill, the calendars only end up costing
  about $12 a piece.  Not bad… not bad at all. 

  Here’s a preview… these are the pictures I’m using for each of the girls’ birthday months:
  
  
  
  

  I’m almost done shopping for the girls as well — and Steve and I don’t
  usually buy too much for each other.  Plus this year we are
  redoing our kitchen so that’s part of our present to each other. 
  Each year, also, as a tradition, the girls buy stuff for each other’s
  Christmas stocking.  For years we would go to the Hello Kitty
  store (Sanrio).  I would take them all in and they would tell each
  other what they want, then I would take them in one by one while the
  others sat outside to buy little things. This was/is great because you
  can find a lot of little things for a buck or two.  This year, my
  eldest wanted stuff from Claire’s – nice also because they are not
  pricey and it’s right next to Sanrio.  I took the two littles
  yesterday and I’ll take the two older ones probably tomorrow.

  I’m gonna go now…
  love to you all
  ~me

  • 11:51 pm
  • 3 Comments