September 28, 2011

family calendar DIY: a tutorial

I have officially reached the point in my life where a wall mounted family calendar has become necessary. More than necessary, it's, well, it's whatever more than necessary is. In one short summer wen went from keeping track of one school schedule to three. Three totally different school schedules. With parent nights and mid day soccer and robot technology classes and night time photography seminars. Once upon a time, and by that I mean four months ago, it was easy. Briton got on the bus, Briton got off the bus. Evie went to a wee bit of preschool. And that was about all I had to keep up with.
Not any longer.

The problem is that family calendars are, um, ugly. OK, probably not all of them. But the ones I found when I realized that my iphone would explode if I tried to make it keep up with our family's current Will is here, Evie is there, Briton is over here and I'm trying to squeeze a bit of work in the middle schedule. And then I found the cork squares.

These are 5x5 1/2 inch thick tiles. If you can't find this size, you could cut down some of the bigger ones that are out there. Or make a really big calendar. For us, I wanted to work a week at a time but you could also do a whole month.
I cut the letters with my silhouette but you could do the same this with pre-cut vinyl letters. The pain in the butt part is peeling off all those little bitty letters, but that's what TV time is for.

Once the letters are one, smooth them down with your finger nail and make sure the edges are totally stuck on so that paint doesn't seep under.
Paint a thin layer of chalkboard paint over the top of the tile and let it dry completely before peeling the letters off.

For permanent or semi permanent schedule items I wrote with white pen with the idea that next term I can paint over those and add new ones, weekly items that change get written up with chalk and wiped away at the end of the week.
After trying out a few things for a backing I ended up with one of my leftover maps from the map wall mounted straight on the funky discolored door and then the tiles are attached with map pins (with extras for notes.)

So far it's working well. Keeping my head straight and mostly making sure we get where we need to be when we need to be there.

Do you use a family calendar? How does it work in your house?