Celebrating 60 Glorious Years!

My grandparents recently celebrated 60 years of marriage. Isn't that an incredible achievement? My mother wanted very much to give them a keepsake to remember this occasion so she asked me to make a photo desk calendar. I was happy to oblige and got to work on the project. It's hard crafting to someone else's taste aesthetic. My mother doesn't like too much of embellishments. She's always prefers 'Clean and Simple' projects so as I was putting this whole calendar together I had to ensure that it was not too grand or lavish. It had to be clean, crisp and extremely memorable.

The picture above is the cover of the calendar. I chose a somewhat muted colour scheme as this gift was to be placed on my grandfather's desk. The papers are all from the DCVW Basics Stack. It's a fabulous pack to pick up for masculine or neutral projects because there is nothing flowery or girly. It's all geometric and solid. The flowers are from a new range at Itsy Bitsy called 'Gentlemen' which contains blooms in greys, blacks and blues. This isn't available online but was at the store and I found it went perfectly with my theme. 

                                  

The base card stock is navy blue and each paper has been trimmed using the Rotary Cutter from Itsy Bitsy to get that awesome scallop edge on all four sides. Scallop edges are a great way to add a little relief and fun to a project and it's so easy to do. Be sure to watch this video demo to see the rotary cutter in action. 

To bind the photo desk album together, I used my favourite crafting tool - The Cinch from We R Memory Keepers. It's the most amazing device as it allows you to punch and bind your projects with ease. No running to the spiral binding centre or struggling with makeshift tools at home. This one does it all and it punches easily through card stock, chip board and other tough papers. Watch this space for a demo on the Cinch coming up very soon!

Finally the binding wire was again from the We R range at Itsy Bitsy. They've got so many options in so many colours and sizes, you can definitely find the one that best suits your project.

Each photo on each page was from my mother's old albums. We found photographs from as old as 1950. I scanned them, enhanced them and sized them to fit uniformly on each page. The calendar will last my grandparents till Dec 2014, but there were too many photographs to add and since the format is the same, I thought I'd just add 3. 

My grandfather was overwhelmed with the gift. He called me from Kerala to express his appreciation and gratitude. It actually felt pretty great to make him so happy with something so simple. He has proudly placed it on his desk, a desk that is practically as old as his marriage and has set aside his trusted Manorama calendar in favour of this photo desk one. 

Thanks so much for dropping by, would love to hear from you so leave a comment and let me know what you think of how I commemorated 60 glorious years for my grandparents.

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