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