Guess what, ladies and gentlemen? We are officially done with more than half of the semester. Know what that means? That’s right — finals are coming up!
You probably have the hang of planning your week out and marking down what assignments need to be turned in by now. If not, and you’ve somehow been stumbling across each deadline, have no fear. I have a way to make keeping track of your life fun and attractive, and it’s called a paint chip calendar.
I have a traditional calendar hanging on my wall, but it gets no love. It’s just too mundane. (Also, I have a psychological association with wall calendars, deadlines and stress.) That’s why I love this ultra-cute, completely customizable calendar. It even _looks_ relaxing.
All you really need is a picture frame, a dry-erase marker, a paper punch in your favorite shape and approximately 31 paint chip squares (grab extra just in case). You can get them for free at your local hardware store in the paint section. I’d recommend making several trips or announcing very loudly that you’re repainting your entire apartment and the neighbors’ too, just so nobody gets mad that you’re taking all their chips.
Since the chips come with three or four colors on a single sheet, you’ll have to cut them up. Use the paper punch to punch a shape into the top of your chips, and save seven of the pieces you just punched out. You’ll use them later.
Remove the glass from the picture frame and glue about three paint chips in a line at the very top (make sure they’re touching). Underneath that, glue your seven saved paint chip shapes side by side.
Then, below your seven shapes, align the rest of your paint chip squares onto the backing in the shape of a calendar. The website that I looked at for this project didn’t do anything too special with the backing, but you can cover it with any kind of decorative paper (washi paper, anyone?) to give it an extra pop.
While your glue is drying, you can decide whether or not you want to paint the picture frame. If you’re OK with how it came, that’s fine, but your project might look more coordinated if you painted the frame the same color as one of your chips. If your frame is plain wood, I recommend using acrylic paint. If your frame is metal, don’t even bother.
After all your glue and paint is dry, you can put the frame and glass on the backing. All you have to do at this point is use a dry erase marker to write the month on the glass above the very top paint chips, the first initial of the day over your paper shapes, and the numeric dates over the space in each paint chip where the shape was punched out.
Your calendar is now ready to use. You can fill it up to your heart’s content and never have to worry about using it up because every month you can just wipe the glass clean and start over.
I’m really excited about this project because I can finally keep track of what I should be doing for my wedding in a very cute and visible way. I know there’s plenty of resources (like [theknot.com](http://www.theknot.com/?MsdVisit=1)) that can help me keep track of planning, but it’s a pain in the butt to have to log into my computer every time I want to know what I should be worrying about right now. Plus, there’s a lot more satisfaction in writing something down compared to typing on a computer, am I right? It’s like an accomplishment in itself!
As we head into finals and I get into Serious Mode with my wedding planning, my schedule is going to become a lot busier. Although having a weekly planner to cram into a backpack is really nice, sometimes it helps to be able to see everything all at once.
I’m hoping this calendar will help me see the bigger picture.