Every year at Christmas, my sister in law creates a calendar using her digital artwork, has it printed out and then sends it to family and friends as Christmas gifts. I've often thought about doing something similar (although not sending to the same family and friends, lol)
But I've always been held back by the thought that I don't have 12 images that follow a theme, or are the right size and orientation for use in a 12-page calendar.
Recently I saw some great single page calendars on Zazzle and realized this was something I could do! After checking in the Zazzle forums, I found that a fellow Zazzler had created a free 2014 calendar template and made it available at
http://www.gatterwe.com/2012/06/07/free-calendar-2014-template/
So, after spending a lovely morning out in the garden today, I spent the afternoon playing around with some of my digital renderings and photographs and made some calendars with them.
The first one I did was with one of my earlier artworks, "Rainy Day at the Lake". It took me a few tries to get the layout correct and I had a different, but distracting background to start with. I'm happier with the final version.
The next one I did used a more recent artwork, "Country Lane in Fall". I selected a plain brown background and then added a lighter block so that the dates would be easy to read.
After making a couple of posters, I saw on another Zazzler's store that they had used the acrylic block "awards" to make calendars with, so I thought I would give it a try. I really love how this came out, although I fear that in reality, the text may be too small to read on in the finished product!
I'm not done with these yet -- I think several of my artworks and many of my photos would work as calendar posters, but that's for another day.
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As I mentioned earlier, I was inspired to create these calendars by other Zazzle designers, so let's have a look at some of the 2014 calendars now.
Zazzle designer Bebops lives in upstate New York, so she is surrounded by beautiful scenery and at this time of year, wonderful fall colors. I love this calendar she made with a fine art photograph of a red barn surrounded by fall foliage. She has enhanced the photo to give it a painterly feel.
Fantasy lovers will appreciate this beautiful "Enchantment and Fantasy" calendar, featuring the fantasy artwork of Rachel Anderson. This 12 month calendar is fully customized with matching artwork on the date pages, which really makes it look attractive.
Scenic photographs are popular for calendars, such as this "Colorado Scenic Calendar" featuring photos of Colorado by Cameron Miller.
Here's another calendar that reminds me of our summer road trip vacation -- this one has a photo of Donner Lake, which we saw as we went through the Rockies (although it wasn't snowy when we drove through!). I especially like that the designer, dlgray, has framed with a blue that matches the deep blue of the lake.
This calendar from the Calendar Shoppe features beautiful fine art landscape and seascape paintings.
My husband and I are planning a trip to Scotland next spring, so I was happy to find this lovely calendar featuring a variety of beautiful views from around the Scottish coast and countryside from Zazzle designer Treadsoftly. Includes: Highland cow by a loch; Dunnottar castle; sunrise and moonrise on the Isle of Skye; fishing villages of the East Neuk of Fife; and more images from rural Scotland. It would make a lovely Scottish souvenir to remind you of your vacation or tour.
Here's another 12 month single page poster style calendar, similar to the style I made. This one is from MuseMagic and features a lovely autumn lakeside scene.
Well as always, I could go on forever, there are so many great calendars on Zazzle (and I'll be adding some more of my own). But now it's your turn. If you are a designer on Zazzle, you are invited to add a link to your 2014 calendars in the Linky Tool below. Use Option 1 in the Link Widget on the page of the Zazzle product/design you'd like to add. It will show up below as a small thumbnail and when clicked on, will link directly to your product.
