New Mickey Calendars

I’ve been meaning to make some fun calendars for our kitchen for quite a while now.  Eliot printed some simple Google calendars for us to keep track of when our bills are due and once we’ve paid them.  (I pretty much have the due dates memorized, but a nice visual reminder doesn’t hurt.)  However, I wanted something that wasn’t quite so boring.  I don’t blame him for the boring factor.  I was actually going to print some Google ones myself, but the point is that I had every intention to make some “designed” calendars that would look fun in our kitchen.

The other day, I decided that I’d take the time to make some!  It’s been ridiculously hot here in the Northeast and we’re not accustomed to 93° weather that feels like 100° or more.  So I planted my butt under our living room ceiling fan and went to work.

I hopped on over to Etsy for some design inspiration, and nothing really popped out at me.  I decided to dive in headfirst and to trust my instincts.  After setting up guidelines for the calendar, I decided that a calendar with the dates in boxes was still kind of boring and expected.  Of course the next thing on my mind was Mickey Mouse, so the next thing I know, I’m putting Mickey head silhouettes in the guideline boxes.  

I decided that I liked the font that I used on the weekly newsletters I sent my bridesmaids while planning our wedding.  (It’s also the font, coach logo and colors we used for our wedding… but more on that later.)  Next, I imported the title, Cinderella Coach and Mickey Pixie Dust that I used for the heading of the newsletters and I was in business.

I played around with the calendar heading and the sizes of the Mouse ears until it fit the page correctly.  Then I added a template for the dates and our bills.  Finally, I made a calendar for July and August by filling in the correct days and due dates.  And then I turned the text to pink, for good measure.   J

After admiring my work, I decided that I’d use this template for the workout calendars I also wanted to make to track our progress training for our half marathon in January.  I made myself a calendar with this same template.

  

I changed the header on Eliot’s to something a little less girly looking.  While I’m perfectly content with our wedding colors and Cinderella’s Coach, I thought that he might want something with Mickey and Donald running instead.  I found some clip art and switched the text to Waltograph.  After a few other small adjustments, his template was also done!

I really like this idea of more personalized calendars.  The possibilities are endless and I love playing around using InDesign.  I’m pretty excited that I can also easily change the headers and text colors for different holidays and seasons.  I’m even planning to add small numbers on the other ear to countdown our trip to Walt Disney World once we get a little closer to January!  J

What do you think of our new calendars?  ºoº