DIY Paint Chip Calendar

Organizing, making lists and planning makes me happy.  One way to do that is through a calendar of course, and although we all have calendars on our phones now, an old fashioned one has its merits.  We all love calendar pictures of cute animals, pretty landscapes, family made, and the many other calendar options out there.  But I got tired of buying calendars and feeling I was more "grown up" I wanted something a little more sturdy to hang on the wall.  The solution, make my own of course.  Inspired by pinterest ideas I knew I wanted to incorporate color and a way to do that is through paint swatches.  Plus if colors in my kitchen or office change I can swap the paint chips. 

The Calendar:
To tackle the project I teamed up with my sister-in-law Andrea, also an organization addict, hoping that with two minds we'd get a great end result.

We surveyed paint samples at Walmart, and picked out our favorite of the available colors.  We both chose to stick with using the same seven paint samples per column since the color of each strip varies in hues already.  I chose blues and Andrea green for our swatches.  Another option is to choose a different paint strip for each day of the week.

You'll need dry erase markers to write on the glass. Get colored ones and jazz up your calendar.

We then picked out white frames at Michael's that already had white mats included.  We kept the background that came with the frame, but you could replace with scrapbook paper to fit your style. Although the paint sample squares are small, the mat border provides additional space to write important info, dates or doodle....I enjoy doodling pictures representing each month. I'm kind of a dork.

Craft tools that are useful are a paper cutter, and small square scrap booking tape. Now for some reason I've never mastered the paper cutter, although I tried hard for straight edged perfection. Sigh. We also cut off the top paint square from each paint sample strip to create separation for the day of the week labels. Since each strip comes with 6 color swatches and there are only 30-31 days in a month it worked out perfectly.

Think about investing in a long time calendar, and even if you don't get the satisfaction of ripping the page out at the end of the month, they're a fun way to express your own creativity.  Plus, hanging it frees up my counter space, and my husband actually takes a look at it periodically.  Anyone else have husbands like that?  So if you're like me and want a personal organizational touch to your kitchen or office, create a paint chip calendar.