Happy Last Year!!!

One thing I always have trouble with is getting rid of the last year's calendars. After all, we pick them because we love the pictures. And after seeing them up on the wall for a year, it feels like they are part of the family, in a sense. Especially when we have a Peace Corps calendar up in the house -- the gorgeous vistas, market scenes and playful little children stay with me long after their picture's month has passed. Year after year, even through house moves, I've held on to these calendars rather than recycle them. But never gave much thought to what to do with them until now, when I've got more free time. So my first project is making calendar picture gift bags. Probaby there are other DIYers doing the same thing out there in the blogosphere, but I haven't checked. It seemed like a novel idea to me, and while it's rather time consuming, it's definitely a labor of love. I can't wait to match the bags to their future gift recipients! (Picture of kittens to the cat lover, etc.) Basic directions below.

Okay, so you start with two calendar pages, ideally with the photos oriented the same way. Decide how deep and how tall you want your bag to be. You will want to mark the sides and bottom of each page so that you know where to fold. Ideally, there will be a significant overlap between the front and back, as well as the bottom flaps so that the bag is sturdy. You also need to decide whether you will fold down the top for extra handle stability. Alternatively, you can just glue small pieces of paper to the inside where you plan to punch holes for the handles.

Attaching the bag can mean glue, tape, stapes, lacing or a combination of these. I like the look of lacing down the sides, but it takes more time and having the sides end up the same height can be dicey. It's pretty cool if you have saved some curly ribbon from holiday gifts and can reuse that. Glueing, then stapling at the edges is a good option but it gets messy. Certainly, taping is the fastest method but it does use up a lot of tape.

Handles can be cut from the same calendar, maybe from the heavier paper of the front cover. Or they can be made from reused holiday ribbon. Strips of fun fabric would be another nice option. When I finally recycle old gift bags that can't be used anymore, I always remove the ribbon handles (since they are not paper). I have used some of these on the bags I made. (This falls in the category of perhaps extreme item re-use, I know. But there's a certain elegance to them going back to their original purpose. :-)

And there you have it, a fun way to upcycle one of the many items hanging around your house in the post-holiday season!