A Year of Sprites

Weeeeee!!!  After 3 weeks of working on this, I’M DONE!!!! Ever since I was little, I grumbled about how July (my birthday month) always had ugly pictures in every calendar I looked at.  A few years ago, I decided to make my own calendars, doing up an image once a month….well, the farthest I ever made it was April, lol.  The challenge at Aurora Wings blog this time is Anything But A Card…and I came up with the brainwave to make a Sprite wall calendar 🙂  It was a lot of work, picking appropriate images for the months, coloring, cutting, figuring out layout, picking papers, more cutting, and finally dismantling an old notebook to retrieve the spiral, so I could hand bind it (NOT recommended!!).   I found this way different than making cards, as I had to make each page fairly light ie: no heavy embellishments, or the whole project would fall off the wall!!  There was a BIG oops along the way. One morning, while sitting at my table having coffee, with a bunch of colored Sprites in front of me, a sneeze came.  From nowhere. And I had my mouth full of coffee!!!! Coffee sprayed ALL OVER!!! I could have cried….but that evening I took a look, and saw that by fussy cutting the images out, I’d be able to salvage them!!  An extra, time consuming, step, but well worth the effort 🙂  So here goes my longest blog post (sorry) ever……

All the images were colored with SN and Copic markers, and all month names were cut on my Cricut.

January:  Hot Cocoa Sprite.  The cold weather calls for a hot drink, and this sweetie fit the bill.  I found the mugs with marshmallows as a freebie stamp, and colored the marshmallows in a bit.

February:  Rose Sprite.  Valentines day calls for roses…and chocolate (but that will be another year!)  The corner hearts were cut with my Cricut 🙂

March:  Leprechaun.  March is the month to go for the green, and this little guy has hit the jackpot!! I drew the shamrock corner decorations, and cut them out, and added a few starry punched shapes as well.

April:  Pussy Willow Sprite.  Here in Saskatchewan, Canada, pussy willows (finally) start to appear at this time.  The branch deco is cut with a Little B die, and the leaves are punched.

May: Spring Sprite without Bunny Ears.  By May, flowers are coming out, and everyone is beginning to feel a bit festive in the spring warmth 🙂  The butterfly decorations are inlaid die cuts made with Tattered Lace and another (??) die.

June:  Pansy Sprite.  June was my Mom’s birth month, and pansies were her favorite flower (mine, too); of course I had to use this Sprite for June!  I die cut the flourish corner with a Cheery Lynn die.

July:  Cupcake Sprite.  Finally July has an awesome picture 🙂  Since it’s my birthday month…of course I need cake!!  I punched the little cupcakes in the corner with a MS punch…and added some sprinkles to them 🙂

August:  Sunflower Sprite.  The end of summer is when the sunflowers seem to be the brightest and most cheerful, so I thought this Sprite was appropriate for the month.  I used my Cricut and a few dies to make the corner decoration.

September:  Autumn Sprite.  Fall is setting in, and the leaves are starting to turn.  This beautiful image reflects the gorgeous season.  I stamped and cut out some leaves from a set from Inkadinkadoo.

October:  Marigold Sprite.  There were a few choices for this month, but I had to go with this cutie…too pretty and cute to be scary!!  I die cut the spider web corner accent.

November: Poppy Sprite.  A perfect image for the month that Remembrance Day (here in Canada) falls in.  The banners in the corner were cut with 2 different dies, then cut to size.

December: Candy Cane Sprite.  What an adorable way to finish the year off with!! Such a festive little Sprite, all ready for Christmas.  The pine boughs were cut with a Tim Holtz Sizzix die.

All said and done, I would only describe this as a labour of love. Thanks for taking the time to look at this!

And now…off to enter the Aurora Wings challenge – Anything But a Card. 🙂

I would also like to enter these challenges:

Work It Wednesday – December Use Something New…I used new dies, new images, and new markers 🙂

Classic Design Team Open Challenge – #21 January ATG

Polkadoodles Crafting Challenge – Week 2 ATG

Simon Wednesday Challenge – Use Patterned Paper

11 comments

  1. OMG, Susan!!!! What a labor of love! I’m kind of speechless, but that rarely stops me…for long. LOL Such excellent choices for each month and amazing coloring. Bet choosing alone was a week’s work and I loved hearing the story behind each one. I think I would have had a heart attack had I sneezed out a mouthful of coffee, but your save is seamless. Great paper choices and embellishments, too. What a joy to look forward to each and every month. Thanks so much for joining our “Anything But a Card” challenge at Aurora Wings. xxD (Well worth the wait!)

  2. Wow Susan! This is stunning. What a great idea. How did you manage to get the holes in the cardstock for the spine? What size did you make this adorable calendar? I love it! Thanks so much for sharing. Have a wonderful day! Hugs, Gloria

    1. Thank you, Gloria 🙂 I have a punch that made the holes for the spine, and the pages are 8×10″ each…so when its open its 10×16″ 🙂

  3. Olalaaaa… a very cute sprites calendar.. and love to read all the reason you choose those sprites for every month .. great job.. love it sooo much.. Thank you for joining our 62th Challenge at Aurora Wings challenge blog.. Hope to see you again in our next challenge and Good Luck at the draw.. <3 xx ~RoRa

  4. Gorgeous calendar Susan! the images are all so cute and I love that you made July with a cupcake, makes it even more personal 🙂 the whole design of this is stunning!!

    Glad you managed to save the images from the coffee, it has happened to me before, and my project had to be binned, you were lucky! 🙂

    thanks for joining us on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
    Luv
    Lols x x x

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