Hello crafty friends! Today I want to share a cute summer craft idea that is functional and will work for you all year round! A DIY Desk Calendar! A perpetual calendar to be precise! I’ve been wanting to make one of these ever since I was a “planner girl” so many years ago! Lately I’ve been wanting to brighten up my crafty space, and although it’s a tiny area in comparison to the eloquent “craft room tours” that you see online and on YouTube, it’s still a tiny space of my own to do with it as I wish.
Throughout the years I’ve curated and collected so many craft supplies that I found myself opening up a small craft store in order to share those precious finds with people who are as passionate as I am about making beautiful things… but I digress.
My tiny craft/retail space does not have any windows and all of my store and craft supplies are withing inches of my desk that my kids often ask “don’t you get claustrophobic in here?” And truthfully when you’re surrounded by pretty things and things that you love it is very simple to overlook the cramped quarters and not feel that overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia.
So keeping in mind that I don’t have a window nor do I work from a large space, the crafts that I decide to make for myself must be pretty and functional. Hence, my perpetual desk calendar.
I Dove Into My Summer Craft Idea Head First
So like many other crafters, I ran a search for summer craft ideas then one thing lead to another and I wound up on Pinterest! I came across desk accessories and perpetual desk calendars caught my eye! I was immediately flooded by my planner memories and how bad I wanted to make one of these, that I said… well… why not! \
I brought out my favorite dies from Heartfelt Creations and TEMU and started die-cutting. It was about half of the way through that I started having second thoughts on how I was approaching this project (and I really should have listened to my intuition), but I pushed forward telling myself “you started this, might as well see it through!”.
I continued my die-cutting and to make things even more difficult for myself, I decided to die-cut through some foam-board. On several occasions I’ve seen how crafters deliberately add this foam-board backing to their die-cuts to give it that specially thick look. And I like the results but little did I think that die-cutting through foam board was going to be a heck of a lot more work than I anticipated! But I kept pushing forward.
And because my hands were screaming “NO MORE” by the second day of this project, I decided to just print out the months instead of die-cutting the letters for each one of them… I used the “Georgia” font if anyone is interested.
Was It Worth It?
Yes, yes, and YES! I love how this desk calendar turned out! It’s bright, it’s unique and it brightens up my space at any given day! Would I do this type of project again? YOU BET! But this is what I would change: 1. Instead of die-cutting all of those pieces, look for a SVG cutting file that will make the process a lot easier on my hands. 2. Use foam instead of foam-board and 3. Run and search for a SVG file!!!
Final Thoughts
Although sometimes we get caught up into what’s popular at the moment, it’s not a bad idea to think outside the box and run in a different direction than what everyone else is doing. Craft projects come in all shapes and sizes and so do our tastes, inspirations and wants.
My “Summer Theme” perpetual desk calendar came to me as a need to brighten up my space with pretty colors, pretty papers that served a function. My handmade desk calendar is large enough to make a statement on my work space, yet small enough to not take up so much room in a limited area.
Whatever your crafty wants or needs are, I encourage you to run with it. Forget what everybody else is doing on the social medias and create a craft project that makes YOU happy.
Signing off until next time. Let’s make something beautiful.
–Sandi
YouTube Project Share – A Walk Through Video
🧷 Collection Used: Lemondrops by Decor8yourlife
🧵 Try it with: Summer theme crafts like vacation journals, scrapbooks, gift albums, or love notes
💡 Craft Tip: Use foam instead of foam-board. You’ll thank me later.