Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Calendars

Before we get too far into 2013, I want to share the little calendars that I made for this year. They started out as Christmas gifts for my book club, but I was pretty happy with how they turned out and made a few more for friends and family members as well.  Early in the year, I'd thought about doing more of my "botanical hearts" to make one for each month, but that just didn't happen. As it turned out, I had fun selecting from among my drawings to find one that suited each month (sorry, my photos are a tad askew):


I love packaging, so I placed the pages in a festive red box mailer from Paper Source. The little glassine envelope holds a stand and a hanging clip. The stand is a little place card holder that I found at Crate and Barrel. Because the paper that I used was a little too thin to stand upright on its own, I cut a piece of heavy white card stock slightly smaller than the 5 x 7 calendar pages; it can be placed in the stand behind the page.

As an option to the stand, I included a little bulldog clip so that the whole year can be tacked up on a bulletin board. And since the pages are 5 x 7, they could also be displayed in a simple photo frame.

I got a lot of  nice "You should sell these!" remarks, which gave me etsy-on-the-brain again, but honestly, I'm still not convinced that I could make any profit in that scenario. Maybe I'll stop blathering on about it and just try it someday. Then again, I ran across this great piece yesterday on  the fabulous website, Brain Pickings. In a letter to his teenage son back in 1927, writer Sherwood Anderson wrote this wonderful sentence:

“The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.”

Amen.

11 comments:

  1. WOW! These turned out wonderful. I really like your choice of the little red box and the red/white twine. What an awesome combination.

    Question - how did you print the calendar pages with your art images? How did you set it up?

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    1. Thanks, Claire!

      I made a little calendar page layout in Adobe Illustrator, and placed the images into the pages. I used to be a graphic designer, so that's the software I know, but I'm sure there are less complicated ways to do it. I had to type the numbers in for each month, which was the most labor-intensive part!

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    2. Thanks for the info. Yes, my graphic software and my skills aren't as sophisticated as Adobe Illustrator. I'll have to play around with some things this year. I have been thinking of making some small calendars for some time .... maybe in time for 2014.

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  2. Hello Sarah, so good to hear from you and see your latest project. I have so been busy with the reconstruction of my parent's home that I have missed many posts from my favorite sites. In fact, I just saw the post regarding your PD diagnosis. Troubling news for sure, but I like your outlook! Keep up the great work...you continue to be an inspiration.

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  3. These are beautiful. And I love your quote. Thank you for sharing your talent.
    Fay

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  4. These are lovely! I'm impressed with your packaging skills. I think you'd do well on etsy, if you ever decide to jump in!

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  5. These are beautiful - both the illustrations and the presentation. Your giftees must have been thrilled:)

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  6. Beautiful! I've enjoyed seeing your posts with these pieces, and it's nice to see them all together. Maybe you could sell them at a gallery or something? I'm not too convinced about Etsy either, though to be fair, I haven't dabbled in it. Love the quote too. Words to live by!

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  7. I love them Sarah... I still think that you should be approaching publishing and greeting card companies.Gorgeous work! Happy new year to you Sarah... I hope its a wonderful year for you. x

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  8. these are absolutely wonderful- especially love the cherries and the post about why you aren't so quick to do Etsy - I agree arts main role is to save me from insanity! Thanks for visiting my blog- so I could find yours!

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