Make Your Own Calendar for the Upcoming New Year

Even if you use the calendar function on your phone, making your own, physical calendar can be a great project to help you take control of your time.

Calendars can be a great way to make sure everyone in your family is on the same page, showcase photos, and plan for the year ahead. A homemade calendar is also a great gift idea.

Chalkboard

A chalkboard calendar is another great DIY calendar project option. It has a schoolhouse feel and can be a great decor piece in your home. Rather than build a year-long calendar, this project will be something you do monthly. After the first month, though, the others will be much easier to create.

Start by drawing a grid on your chalkboard, using chalk and a ruler, which is six by seven squares large. Leave enough room at the top to write the name of the month. Below the name of the month, write the days of the week. Then, in the squares of the grid, write the corresponding dates.

For each subsequent month, you will not have to redraw the grid or rewrite the days of the week. Instead, you will only need to rewrite the dates and any other important information you wish to include in the calendar itself. This is a fun and easy project that you can get your kids involved with.

If you have multiple children, you may want to consider getting multiple colors of chalk and having each color represent a different child. You can then have them write things on to the calendar in their designated color that they need to do.

Photo Collages

Sites like Shutterfly and Etsy can be used to make a calendar with photos. To do so, gather your favorite photos from last year and select which ones you want to be displayed on which month. Take the month in question into consideration.

For example, if your mother's birthday is in February, you may want to have a picture of her in that month's photo collage. Some more advanced calendar options will also allow you to put events on certain days, like birthdays, reunions, and holidays.

If you want a less high-tech photo calendar, you can build one yourself. You could buy a blank calendar and add photos to it. You could also build the calendar yourself using high-quality paper that you then staple or join together another way.

If you're building the date portion of the calendar yourself, make sure you use a ruler and draw all the boxes the same size.

Make them large enough that you can write things inside of the boxes. You should also make sure you are matching days of the week to the correct date of the month.

Acrylic

Acrylic calendars have a more modern appearance than their chalkboard counterparts. Their clear, clean look makes them a favorite of many influencers and Instagram lovers.

To start, grab an acrylic sheet, ideally one with a frosted protective covering on each side. Don't remove this sheet until you are done with your project. It keeps the acrylic scratch-free.

If you're planning to hang the calendar, you will have to drill holes into each corner. You can pick cute hardware to hang it with or go with something clear and sleek. Make sure to be very careful to not crack the acrylic. If you have extra acrylic, you may want to use it to practice.

You should separately create a calendar decal to attach to the acrylic. If you don't have experience with this type of project, you may want to outsource this.

If you are an experienced DIYer, you can create one yourself and attach it to the acrylic. To do so, remove the protective sheet from the back of the acrylic and use something flat to make sure the decal is laid correctly on the acrylic without any air bubbles. Then remove the backing from the decal.

You could also create the calendar using dry erase markers, but that is more likely to fade or smear over time.