Sweet and Spicy Calendar Card

I almost didn’t make any holiday-related design for this year. Thanksgiving rolled around and I hadn’t done anything (and was feeling rather uninspired and lazy). So I was on the fence on creating anything…but then I decided to just do it. Make something. I wanted to make something simple and useful—so I made a calendar recipe card.

I chose four recipes from blogs that I thought would be fairly easy for anyone to make (and would hopefully appeal to most palates). Admittedly, I haven’t made all of the recipes myself, but I trust that they’re delicious. I realized that they were all either sweet or spicy recipes and decided that that would be the theme for the card.

I wanted the card to be fun and have a slight retro vibe with the type and color. The only art I really did was the cover—I had to draw that by hand. It didn’t come together quite as quickly as I would have liked (it practically never does), but overall it didn’t take too long. A couple of hours here and there (and there) and it was done.

I also created a bellyband as my “tag” so I could put the recipient’s name on it. It also has a correlating message on it that ties in with the card itself.

Animals Gone 7 Deadly Sins Calendar

Spring 2010. Although it was early, I thought that I should get started on my “Make Something Present”. I like making calendars, so I wanted to make another and came up with the format first. I wanted to create something with layers, so I decided on using different sized sheets that would go from the smallest size in the front to the largest size in the back.

Once I figured out how the calendar would be put together, I thought about what the calendar should be about. Suddenly it came to me: 7 Deadly Sins. With seven sins, I could divide the months up to two a sheet plus a cover sheet. But I didn’t want it to be a straight up “sins” calendar; I wanted to do something that would amuse me.