Calendar pages April and May

Every year around the time school starts back up I start to gather photos from the year and make calendars for family members. This year I made (5 brothers, M&D Groh, Grandma, the oldest niece, my Mom and Brother) 11 of them plus I have one in my office that is different from everyones. I thought I would share the different ones that I had for April and May.

My brothers calendar April calendar page:

For his calendar I used these stripes of sentiments (in the right upper corner) throughout the entire calendar. I found them at My Simple Stories, which are still free and available. It just gave his calendar some unity which I liked and may do more so in the future. That big oval is a recycled card, blue paper by CM, The pink is very old and the purple is by Colorbok. Border sticker by Current, chipboard by Making Memories and bunny sticker by Karen Foster. This family has an annual Easter Egg hunt and these are all the cousins.

This is my moms April calendar page:

The picture isn't the greatest (sorry) I believe the patterned paper is by K and Co, the pink paper is by CM, April showers is by Provo Craft (very old),dies are by Spellbinders, egg stamp and ink by Close to my Heart and the stickers I think are by Stickibilities.

This is my in-laws May calender (they all had the same photos per month just variations of those photos depending on paper availability). 

All the patterned paper by CM, stamps are by Close to my Heart (letters and leaves) and Martha Stewart (leaves and acorns), embossing flowers under right photo and brown paper is by Cuttlebug/Provo Craft, and the button leaf is by I think All dressed Up is the company name.

This is my mom's May calendar  

The green patterned paper to the left is by Sunborn and under the squares is by CM, square stickers by Provo Craft, circle stickers by Basic Grey, Livin' Loud card by Fancy Pants (I think), blue papers by DCWV and the rest of the paper is just scraps from my stash.

So as you can see these calendars are a great way to use up old product and my families (not to be mean) don't know if the products are new or old. You can also tell the different photos I am working with per family. My husbands grandmothers calendar included pictures of her other children and I come from a divorced family therefore the pictures of my moms calendar vary from that of my brothers calendar. My brothers calendar includes photos from my dads side of the family. So there are 7 calendars that have all the same pictures in them and the remaining 4 (and my office calendar) have some different pictures. 

I do have a system to my calendar madness that I will share with you. This year I took all my Creative Memories paper and put it in a bag. Each time I would start a page to any calendar I would go there first. Then if I couldn't find a match I would go to my Sunborn paper that I bought from Sam's Club a few years back. If I still was striking out with paper I would go to my stash. The problem with going to the stash is the time it takes to go thru the stash and find the right paper. Well I didn't have that kind of time so I really limited myself in what supplies I used, other wise I would have to start them in January to get them out for Christmas gifts.....um no thanks. Besides I like to use photos from the year before and no older. It is a progression of how much the kids and adults have grown or changed that makes it fun. At the end of each year we rip them out of the calendar, trim them up all pretty and put them into a Pioneer 8.5x11 scrapbook and use it as one of our many coffee table albums. It's fun for people to look at all the different years and fun for me to see my style has evolved from year to year.

One final note and then I have to get back to this scrapbook I am working on. I put the families birthdays and anniversaries in the calendar so people can look on their calendar and remember to call each other on their event. I send cards to each and every single person in our families but for other it's a great way to stay connected with the family since we are in Michigan and we have family that live in California. 

Hope you have enjoyed these two months worth of calendars. I will have more to share in the future and won't have to explain as much. Have a great Tuesday:)

Cindy