DIY Paint Chip Wall Calendar

Welcome to those visiting from the Money Saving Expert in the UK, and others here in the US from Pinterest. This entry has become quite popular today (12.05.12) after the pic below was featured in an article about Christmas presents under a fiver! :)

Several months ago, while browsing Pinterest, one of my favorite pastimes these days, I came across a pin linking to this page. The pin was for this cute, colorful wall calendar.

Picture courtesy of Cheltenham Road

I also came across another one on this other page, too. This one looked pretty similar, using the same concepts.

Picture courtesy of Maple & Magnolia

So, I was inspired to try making my own DIY wall calendar as well. :) What's nice about this particular project is how customizable it is. For example, instead of using a poster frame like both of these people did, I purchased a floating frame (at 50% off!) at Michael's. It was 16" x 20", so still nice and big, but looks a little fancier.

You can also customize the colors that you want to use. I picked up my paint chips at Home Depot. The Behr brand has some nice big ones in their premium brand, so I chose those. I decided to go with a dark to light to dark trend with mine. I chose these blue-green hues (UL220-12: Urban Mist, UL220-7: Ozone, UL220-3: Tahoe Blue, and UL220-2: Voyage) because I like them (you'll find these colors throughout our entire house!). The calendar hangs in our kitchen/breakfast nook area, which is painted a neutral shade of tan right now, so I didn't need to try to match/coordinate to any particular colors. Each paint chip was big enough to make 2 squares, so I needed 5 chips of each of the 4 colors I used (20 total chips). Measuring everything out, to allow for 5 rows of 7 (35 total squares), I had room to make my squares 2 1/4" x 2 1/4", then space them 3/8" apart. I used a corner rounder tool to punch out some rounded corners because I liked how that looked better. Using double-sided tape, I secured the squares to the back piece of glass. Then I made a longer rectangle for the top to label the month. Once this was done, I simply put the pieces of glass and frame back together and voilà!

I can use a dry-erase marker to write in the dates and what we have going on that day. I like to use a color-coded system that matches up with the colors I assign to each of us in our Cozi calendar. Even though I use this super awesome mobile/online calendar app, I also like seeing the entire month in front of me on the wall. Now that we actually get out of the house most days with activities or appointments, it is very helpful for keeping my sometimes forgetful memory in check. ;)

Along with completing this project, we are finally starting to get more things hung on the walls. We've been in the house for 3 months now, so it's about time! We had our beautiful family pictures taken in April and July this year by Kristy Vest Photography. I decided to hang the most recent ones in our living room. The colors we are wearing match up great with the rug and pillows in that room. :)

We're getting this easy stuff out of the way, then it's time to dig in and get started on the big projects! We're hoping to start our basement remodel soon, along with the back deck/patio overhaul. Hopefully it won't be long before I am posting about those.