Ideas For Creating A Homemade Calendar

Hello crafty friends! Lisa Tilson is here with you today on the Spellbinders blog. I’m so thrilled to be here to share some ways to use the Florals Through the Year Collection with you. This is a very pretty collection that includes 12 floral press plates, a 2025 DIY Calendar set of press plates, along with a die that you can use to create an easel stand for your completed homemade calendar. I am sharing a couple of ways to create the actual calendar cards as well as simply using one of the floral plates on a standard A2 card.

Calendar Cards With Die Cuts

For my first couple of examples, I have used the 2025 DIY Calendar Press Plates and paired them with some floral die cuts. Rather than have the calendar in the bottom center section of my panel, which I guess is the more traditional way to make a calendar, I have moved mine to the side. I used the October Cosmos Press Plates and July Water Lily Press Plates for the month header on each panel.

1. Start by taking a panel of A2 Pebble Cardstock and using BetterPress Black Ink, press the calendar days/dates and the month of October press plate onto the bottom right-hand corner.
2. Repeat the process for the second panel, switching out the month to the July press plate.

3. Take the Sealed Cord and Faux Seal Sentiments Press Plate and Die Set and press two sentiments onto Pebble cardstock using BetterPress Black Ink and then cut them out with the circle die.
4. Take the Autumn Sealed Sprigs Etched Dies and die cut some flowers and foliage from Crimson, Poppy Field, Fog, Graphite, Persimmon, Saffron, and Beeswax Color Essentials Cardstock.

5. Adhere the pieces together where necessary.
6. Add a tiny dab of Bearly Art Glue where you want to glue your first stem and then build your spray up from there. Use an acrylic block to hold the stems in place whilst the glue dries. You will be covering this area with your sentiment so it doesn’t need to be super neat!

7. Pop on your sentiment using wet adhesive to finish the panel.
8. For the second calendar card, take the Sealed Wildflowers Etched Dies and die cut them from Peridot, a medium green from your stash, Fruit Punch, Pink Sand, and Beeswax

9. Repeat the process of adhering the stems as you did for the first panel and pop your sentiment on at the end.

Tips:

1. The grid lines on your BetterPress Letterpress System magnetic platform are invaluable when lining up the different plates.
2. Do a test press on scrap cardstock before finally inking up the plates to press onto the BetterPress cardstock, to avoid wastage.
3. Try not to make your die cuts too bulky. If you are making 12 panels and you want them to sit on the easel stand, you don’t want to have too much bulk.

Calendar Cards With Ombre Press Plate Inking

For my next examples, I am keeping them super simple and adding my calendar to the bottom central part of the panel and just doing some ombre inking with the plates. I am using January Snowdrop Press Plates and September Morning Glory Press Plates along with the 2025 DIY Calendar Press Plates.

1. Take two panels of A2 Porcelain Cardstock and die-cut them using the Perfect Touch Rectangles and Tag Etched Dies. As these are simple calendar cards, the detail around the edge helps to give them a bit more interest.
2. Line up the January 2025, days and dates press plates and press them using Black Ink.
3. Change up the plates for September 2025 and press accordingly.

4. On your first panel, take the January Snowdrop Press Plate and place it onto your magnetic platform. The way that the plates have been designed allows you to line up your plate so that the stem can fit in between the month and year of the calendar press plate.
5. Ink up the plate from bottom to top using Spruce, Teal Topaz, and Cruise BetterPress Inks. Make sure to overlap the colours as best as you can. I use a gentle tapping motion where they overlap and try and make sure there isn’t a straight line. Go ahead and press the plate.

6. Repeat the inking if necessary. It is always a good idea to make sure your ink pads are nice and juicy when pressing anything. This helps immensely whether it is a straightforward press or if you are trying to overlap colours.

7. For your second panel, place the September Morning Glory Press Plate onto the magnetic platform.
8. Ink it up, from bottom to top, with Rustic, Azalea, and Taffy BetterPress Inks. Press the plate.
9. Your panels are done!

Tips

1. I prefer to die-cut my panels before inking them up if I can. Although die-cutting after pressing panels does retain most of the feel of the letterpress, you get to keep the full effect if you can die-cut first. This isn’t always possible but I do it where I can.
2. I have Best Ever Craft Tape holding my magnetic platform in place on my BetterPress Letterpress System. This helps to keep the platform stable if you are double-pressing a plate.
3. As you will be changing out the month/year and days plates each time you make a new panel, make sure you keep the days of the week plate static. This way your calendar will be in the exact place on each panel of cardstock.

Rainbow Celebration Card

Don’t forget that you can still use this beautiful collection of floral press plates without the calendar element. So, I have created a rainbow celebration card using the June Honeysuckle Press Plates.

1. Take a panel of A2 Porcelain Cardstock and draw a feint pencil line onto it using an Essential Arch Etched Die. I use a die that is one size larger than the die I will use to cut the actual window. This way the pencil line will be hidden. I could have just blended the panel without a pencil line but I find it helpful to see a visual guide of where the window will be and I can make sure my colors are vibrant and blended really well in that area as it will be the focus of the card.

2. Using this pencil line as your guide, blend Distress Oxide Inks around the arch. I used Picked Raspberry, Dried Marigold, Squeezed Lemonade, Cracked Pistachio, Salvaged Patina and Shaded Lilac. I made sure to leave a small area in the centre free of ink so that my image would pop more.
3. Take an A2 panel of 80lb white card and cut an arch window using the Essential Arch Etched Dies.
4. Pop some foam tape onto the back of this panel and set it to one side.
5. Place the June Honeysuckle Press Plate onto your BetterPress magnetic platform and ink up the plate with BetterPress Black Ink.

6. Tape your rainbow panel to the platen and then go ahead and press the plate.
7. Foil the “celebrate” sentiment from Mini Everyday Sentiments Glimmer Hot Foil Plate and Die Set using Black Glimmer Hot Foil and the Glimmer Hot Foil System.
8. Cut it out with the sentiment label die in the set.
9. Pop it across your panel using foam tape.
10. Add Pink Color Essentials Gems to finish.

So that brings us to a close! I hope that you have enjoyed seeing my calendar and card samples today and that they give you some ideas for using this beautiful collection of plates whether it is for a handmade calendar or simply to just make cards. If you would like to see more of my cards, I would love to have you join me over on my blog, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining me here on the blog today. I hope that you have a great day!

Other Supplies

Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 80 & 110lb cardstock, Thin Foam Tape, Hero Arts Blending Brushes, Medium Green cardstock, Embellishment Wand, Picked Raspberry, Squeezed Lemonade and Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxide Inks.