Calendar Workshop 2023

[Linda J Walker]

I have not posted yet because I am slow! and I have not had much time to focus on this project!

 

But I think I am like Monique, I am not sure about the style, so maybe I got stalled there.

 

I added the year, because I WILL FORGET in a year or 2. I write things on my calendar, in some ways they become a journal of sorts. As a genealogist, I keep my old calendars because they bring back memories. Hopefully good memories :)

 

This is what I have begun for the first template-

 

 

[Susan Ewart]

May and June.  I'm getting an idea of a style now.  Gradient background with texture effects.  I tried many versions of the texture from the materials palette.  I like that it's on a different layer, but I didn't like the texture it made.  I do like the texture from Effects>Texture Effects>Texture better.  I wish it was on it's own layer.  I think I'll duplicate the gradient background and put the effect on one, that way I can decide if I want the texture or not. I added the year smaller in the opposite corner.  I will likely change the Prida 02 Calt font.  Believe it or not most of the glyphs are just typing it out, without using a character map.  I had to go and look in the glyphs for normal letters and it's a super unorganized glylph section.

[Anne Lamp]

March calendar      My theme is Flower of the month that I googled. March is Daffodil and since I have hundredes of photos I have taken over the years (I live daffodils) I used one of mine.  The text for the month and also for the days is Bigtime.  Font for the M in March is Angellica Merona.  Font for the year is blackadder itc.  I haven't done any shadows yet, I thought I would leave that until I was done in case I wanted to change something.

[Susan Ewart]

July and August.  Prida 02 Calt is the font for the month and year, days are Prida Em Cooper.  Gradient with Texture from Effects.

 

Really love seeing how everyone lays out their calendars.  Stuff I had not though of and really like eg. where you place the month, year etc).  Beautiful and interesting photo's and the textures I'm seeing are so interesting.

 

April, that's a great idea for the desktop.

 

Linda your texture, color and photo are fabulous

 

Ann, I'm enjoying your Washington layouts, you are making me an armchair traveler.  Wish I could see it in person!

 

I wish I could comment on everyone, they are all so enjoyable to look at. With every visit to the forum I see something I want to try.

 

I also like the challenge of making the photo's fit the mask, it's exercising my creativity and problem solving abilities.

[Susan Ewart]

Ann, I love this photo.

[Anita Wyatt]

Here is my day 2 February Calendar showcasing  Castle Linderhof.  It is situated in southwest Bavaria near the village of Ettal. This glamorous royal castle is 15 km from the Bavarian town of Oberammergau. It is the smallest of the three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and the only one which he lived to see completed. It was also his favorite castle. Last time I toured it was in 1986 and I loved it. My January Calendar page shows Ludwig's Neuschwanstein castle. Thank you Carole for inspiring all of us.

[AprilDawn]

Gerry  Thank you for your kind comments. ..... it is wonderful you do Calendars for your Mother. My 98 year old Mum had Dementia before she passed away and  I personally know how visuals  via cards and calendars can be a great help for their memory. she never forgot who we were right to the end.

 

Still more lovely work since I was here earlier... a joy to view them I still go back to the beginning of this thread to look at them all again.

 

below is my February Desktop Calendar ... when it gets closer to the new year i will add birthdays  to the calendar.

 

Dawn

 

 

[Ann Seeber]

Gerry: Using the birthday calendar as a visual for your mother is an inspired idea. I made ID sheets for my husband in his final year so he could tell which grandchild was on duty while I went out for errands, etc. The calendar templates this year don't have the days of the week so I view them as Perpetual Calendars that can be used any year. Perhaps I'll add the family birthdays. You've got my creative juices flowing! ;-)

 

April/Dawn: I'm so glad to see you back and hope you are now feeling well.  I keep a 1300 x 950 template with a black background which is the same as my monitor, for my ongoing projects here. I use a .jpg of it as my desktop background at all times. I do use my Big Cat Calendars as fill-ins when I don't have a current project. Are those Lorikeets in your calendar? My granddaughter's zoo has a flock that visitors can interact with and feed. They have gorgeous colors!

[MoniqueN.]

Still experimenting :) I will keep the template vertical, but would like quotes from the series and a Scottish related picture/embelishment also, so I have rotated the boxes vertical (have to put numbers in it) I won't use the calenders to write on, just as decoration but a bit hesitating about the vertical box lay out :)

[MoniqueN.]

When we got the first templates, I thought how will you make the pages look nice with the round masks, but now I see all those calender pages I'm amazed how wonderful it looks! It's a joy to see all of the pages :)

[MoniqueN.]

Susan, you're bouquets look almost as advertisements fo bridal bouquets, love them! (Love flowers)

[fiona cook]

I changed the dates' font to 'Tasteful Sandwich' and used for my quotes also. The letter spacing in the new font was a bit close for some figures so I used kerning to space them out a bit so they appear to align better.

 

Thank you Susan and Lynda for liking my layouts. I think the circular framework for the photos is more impactful sometimes than the original rectangular format. Credit there due to Carole's design. I like the way Lynda has used a photo background that draws you in to the main circular photo. Susan's fresh colours and symmetrical, geometric feel to the images just look so good in a circle. Well worth considering these ideas for future projects.

[Cristina]

I love to see what everybody is doing. Great work, Everyone!

 

Here is my page for October.

 

Background paper: Lilypad - Pink Reptile Designs - Basically Kraft-pp09

 

Font: Soffia Slant

 

For the holiday date, I used Layer Styles>Outer Glow

[Susan Ewart]

Monique and Fiona, thank you for the kind words.  My heart is singing right now.  Joining the campus has renewed my love of photography, for that I am truly grateful.  (I just sold all my silversmithing tools/supplies so I could buy a new camera...I might sell my older, well-worn husband to get the lens I want ?).

 

Monique, my dad's side of the family is Scottish. Although I am adopted I consider myself an honorary Scott.  Most people have a hard time saying Ewart (my last name), which sounds like U-ert, we get called EE-wart? .  So we used to say, "it's like "Stewart, without the St., because we aint no Saints....).

 

Cristina, great layouts and what a great idea with the outer glow.

[fiona cook]

The tips we have learned in this tutorial must be worth remembering and like Cristina I found the tip to hold the ctrl key to toggle between the dropper and the floodfill tool, is a good one.

 

I was also interested by Carole prompting PSP by using the swatch toggle arrows in order for the colour swatch to register. I had found this by accident (probably frustrated) but now I know that I don't have a bug!

[Lynda DiGregor]

Didn't get a chance to do July and August so here they are with the Sept/Oct lesson

[Ann Seeber]

I did some editing on the January calendar and also finished October but September is taking longer. Who knows? Maybe later today.

 

All these photos were taken by my daughters in DC last week except for January that I got from the memorial's website as I felt I needed snow.

 

In case you can't read the text in October in this reduced version, here it is:

The Apotheosis of Washington is the fresco painted by Greek-Italian artist Constantino Brumidi in 1865 and visible through the oculus of the dome in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building.

[Marie-Claire]

Hello! It's a bit busy this week and next week, and I got behind as usual. Today I was able to work on my calendar, and I want to show what I'm doing.

You have already uploaded many beautiful calendar pages !

[Lynda DiGregor]

September and October- I used a few photos of a family get together/motorcycle ride in Tennessee and North Carolina.

 

My husband and I left the rest of the family at a cabin we rented on Douglas Lake and rode the Dragon.

 

The Cheoah Dam can be seen from the Tail of the Dragon and the other photo is a few motorcyclists on the road. Tail of the Dragon is a must for motorcycling. Not only does it take skill but it is beautiful.

 

I do like Carole's bounding box and the color changes on the weekend days and dates.

[Susan Ewart]

September and October.  I wasnt planning on the using the September image because of the black reflection in the glass but after seeing the template I changed my mind.  I tried so many different colors for the weekends.  White disappeared in some and I wanted it to be readable.  Chose a red version.  I liked the selection, flood fill, reduce opacity.  I didn't like the frame so on one (Sept) I feather the edge.  That was a hard one to do and found how by accident.  I know we did it in a tutorial some time ago, but I couldn't remember.  I think though, I like the straight edges of box in October.

 

Wow, such stunning layouts today.  I like reading about Washington, DC Ann.  And, Carole, when I watch the video, I use full screen and holy wow, it's tack sharp on the 21" screen.

[Ann Seeber]

I revised October so the text at the bottom is readable (in the large format) and I finished September. Added my girls! :-)

 

September was hard with the geometric mask. I ended up going all in on the tiles texture and then hit it with the Illumination/Lights effect. Does look different, I must admit!

[cindy harris]

Hi I Love everyone's Calendars they are so cool

 

Has anyone heard how Corrie is doing? Didn't she have surgery yesterday?

[Corrie Kinkel]

Yes Cindy, you are right and I'm back home now. Surgery went well but I will need some time for recovery; fysiotherapie is starting monday. I'm feeling okay but very tired because I wasn't able to sleep last night in the clinic because there was so much light in the corridor, noises and not being able to find a comfortable position in bed. I had still an IV-line and I have a lot of medication for painkilling and I have to inject myself dailey for a month with some thing to prevent trombosis. So I thank everyone for their concern and good wishes. I have looked at all the wonderfull work that is done and I hope that I will get back to making my calendar, but it will progress slowly I suppose. For now I'm off to bed.

 

Dawn I am so glad it turned out okay for you and I hope you can keep up being here!

[Harmony Birch]

I decided to give each page a little internal consistency by using the same colours I had used for the dates for the month on each page. Here is my September. The month is much more readable in the large version.

[Cassel]

I hate when the system eats my post (my long posts!). All my responses from last night have vanished, so I'll have to combine all the comments from yesterday and today in one post.

 

Anita (#83341), are you customizing your workspace now to get larger text? (#83406) Beautiful photo of the castle.

 

Cristina (#83346), glad that you caught a new tip from the tutorial. (#83423) You always find such cute photos!

 

Ann (#83348), this image would actually need the Perspective Correction tool, not the Straighten tool like I thought. Did you try? (#83356) The Sculpture command uses the same patterns that are available in the Materials palette. With the addition of the bevel, it makes it the closest we can have to layer styles in Photoshop. (#83364) Have you considered adding a box behind the dates for the July page to make the dates stand out more? (#83436) Using photos for the background gives stunning results.

 

Harmony (#83359), that is a great way to create some consistency between the pages.

 

Chris (#83360), it is ok. You can keep the templates for later use and the tutorials will be available until the end of the month.

 

AprilDawn (#83376), that is a great use of a horizontal format for a calendar! (#83408) That rainbow in the background is lovely and complement the photo so well!

 

Gerry (#83381), great use of a calendar as a memory tool. Glad you could customize it for your mom.

 

Linda (#83383), yes, calendars can be used as a sort of diary of what has happened during the year.

 

Susan (#83387), the texture from that effect can't be on its own layer as it is applied TO the layer. It is like using a sponge on your paint to give it texture. (#83455) Using a gradient for the background gives such an elegant result.

 

Anne (#83390), it is always a good idea to wait until the end to add shadows, although if you want to add them on a new layer, you are not stuck if you change your mind.

 

Monique (#83414), did you use the ones from previous calendars or did you draw your own?

 

Fiona (#83421), great use of the Kerning to adjust the spacing. I agree that sometimes, some character combinations give a strange look in a series.  (#83428) Those boxes behind the dates make the whole page look so different, don't you think?

 

Lynda (#83432), you are using wonderful backgrounds for those pages! (#83452) Great idea to add the days of the week. They were not included as the templates were really non-month-specific.

 

Marie-Claire (#83440), I feel there is a theme to those pages! :) Beautiful colors!

 

Corrie (#83463), hi!!!! take it easy now!