Upcycled Design Lab Blog

2013 Smash Book Day Planner Calendar

 

 

Happy Happy New Year!! 

 

I do hope your year is off to a lovely start. 

 

My new year always starts, in part, with the excitement of finding a new empty day planner / journal.  This is no trifling matter as we have to spend an entire year together. 

 

Now, I would like to tell you that I use my day planner in the ordinary way, to note the meetings, social engagements, and other things that I don't want to forget.  But I have a much closer attachment than that. 

 

I am one of those people who has to write down everything.  Well not everything but most things.  It is possible, after all, that 6 years from now I may really want to know that I was typing this blog post at 2:00 in the afternoon on January 5th 2013.  Right it could happen?  I know you are probably wondering what kind of nut job needs to write down that they did the dishes at 7:00 pm or took a cat nap at 3:00 and all I can say is, I have been behaving this way for years and so far have been passing for a normal member of society.  Of course most of society doesn't know about this obsessive behavior or the fact that I keep empty toilet paper rolls in my night stand.  So it could be that I have just been lucky.

Strangely enough there are actually a few days when I don't write down my every activity.

 

But I never feel quite right about it.  

Oh but enough about me and my strange OCD symptoms.  The only point here is that I would never think of venturing unarmed into a new year without my dear day planner. 

 

So according to my custom, sometime in November or December, I began my search for the perfect new Day Planner.  This years search yielded an uninspiring selection of options and so I decided to make my own. 

 

I have been wanting to try this whole smash book thing anyway.  So this was the perfect opportunity.  I have only just started to put it together but here is what I have so far.

 

 

 

I made these month stamps from my empty ink cartridges and empty Styrofoam containers.  The tutorial is here.

 

 

The page with all the empty boxes is for my 5 Big goals for 2013 and the tasks associated with them.

 

 

These are the pages for next week.  I am too embarrassed to show you what this week looks like.  Rest assured there is a little bit of writing on them.   :-)

 

 

 Happy Upcycling,

 

 

 

Upcycled Styrofoam and Ink Cartridge "LOVE" Stamps

 

Do you refill your ink cartridges when they are empty?  I have never had the nerve.  Somehow the fear of damaging my printer has been permanently ingrained in my brain.  But I go through ink pretty fast with my printer and every time I replace one of the cartridges I get a little pang of guilt.  They have a nice shape with a little handle on top and I want to make something out of them. 

 

The other day I saw a tutorial where crafters were making prints with styrofoam and so my idea was born. 

 

If you have read my bio or the intro to this blog you will not be surprised to know that I have a stock pile of styrofoam to go boxes just waiting to be put to good use.  So off I went to make my custom stamps.

 

The result was quite satisfactory I think.

 

 

I started with one to go box and the 4 empty HP 02 ink cartridges.

 

I cut the to go box apart and used the small side pieces.  I am saving the big flat section for some other mystery project, and when I say mystery, I mean to me.  It's not some big surprise I have planned I am just hopeful that some great project will present itself and when it does I will be prepared with my ever growing stash of junk.

 

 

I used two layers of styrofoam glue together with hot glue.  I wasn't sure if it would melt the styrofoam but it worked just fine. 

 

 

It was a pretty quick and easy project. 

 

 Happy Crafting