days go by

After seven loads of laundry and some heavy vacuuming and mopping, it's almost like they were never here.  

Steve and I ate dinner at the kitchen counter last night.  The dining room table would have just seemed too empty.   

There's nothing like a full table. 


After they left, I threw myself into full-on project mode (in between loads of laundry) and finished something that I'd been trying to work on for weeks now. 

After searching for a suitable wall calendar for the year, I came to the conclusion that there are no suitable wall calendars for sale anymore.  Unless you love dogs or Justin Bieber.  Then you should be set. 

But alas, I don't even like dogs and up until a few months ago I thought his last name was Beaver.  So you can see why neither of those were good options for me, personally. 

As luck would have it, shortly after I reached this sad calendar conclusion, I came across an amazing idea for making your own.  Design Mom, who is one of my favorite bloggers, made a calendar for her family and offered a full how-to on her blog. 

It's one of those concepts that is so basic, you wonder why you never thought of it before.  You cut a sponge into whatever size square you would like (mine is about 2").  Then you use watercolors and just stamp out the days.  Once it's dry, write in the month and the numbers and you're done! 

One of my goals for the project was to spend less than $3 on supplies (the dog calendar was $3).  I found an 8 pack of 14" x 22" white poster board at Walmart for $2.76.  I cut each sheet in half, so each month is 14" x 11".  Design Mom had these cool water colors in tubes, but I just used my good old Crayola tray.  I actually started out using regular paint and thinning it with water, but the colors weren't as sheer as I wanted them to be.  I found that painting the watercolor onto the sponge with a paintbrush worked quite well. 

Now I'm working on how to hang them.  If I had a super large bulletin board, I would hang them all up at once with my fabric covered push pins.  I like to be able to see more than one month at a time.  Last night, Steve and I propped March through May up on the coffee table and planned out our spring.  It was pretty awesome. 


Speaking of spring, it's here and I'm pumped.  We're planning on a full weekend of playing in the yard and enjoying the lovely weather.  I'll meet you back here on Monday and show you what's blooming!