diy dry-erase wall calendar

March 20, 2013


I am not a particularly crafty person, nor am I in any way organized. So the fact that I did a craft about organization, encompassing both traits, is quite impressive (to me). 






I have wanted to have a one year wall calendar for quite a while to help me with organization, but I just never made it a priority. Instead I would download tons of apps thinking they would work. I counted. On my phone I have 18 apps to help organize.

18!


And of those, I only use 2 or 3 on a regular basis. 

But what I realized is that I am a very visual person. I don't want to look at a small screen on my phone that shows days of the month. I don't want to look at a list for just one day or one week. I like seeing the big picture. Not only what do I have to do today, but what is going on tomorrow, this weekend, next month, this summer, etc. 

How to do it
We had a piece of plexiglass, 38" x 27", in our basement. It was left by the old owners. I have no idea what it was from. I never threw it out because I kept thinking I could re-purpose it somehow. I am so glad I kept it. 

So I cleaned it up with some windex and goo gone. I measured it and then did the math to figure out how big each month should be. 

Using word, create a table with 7 columns and 7  rows. The first row merge the cells. This was where the name of the month went. The next row is for days of the week, and the following 5 rows are for the days. Since I want to use this year after year, I did not add numbers to the days. 



To make it visually appealing, each months' header is a different color. This took the longest time out of any of the steps. Each color had to look good, compliment the colors around it and as an added bonus, had a seasonal look to it. 

Once each month was set, print them out and cut them to size. Lay them out on the plexiglass to arrange them. I then taped 4 months together. Using Scotch Mounting Squares, attach the months to the back of the plexiglass.

Since my plexiglass did not have a frame (and I didn't want to buy one) I just used some black duck tape (but I wish I had this tape) and covered the edges. 

To number the days, I actually used a sharpie instead of dry erase. I don't want the numbers coming off each time I add something to the calendar and accidentally brush against it. If you google, there are plenty of ways to get a sharpie off a dry erase board.






Once it was finished I started adding things right and left. Every time I thought of something I would run to the calendar to add it. Another added bonus was the space next to the names of the months. I realized I could put tasks there that did not have a specific date, but that I wanted to get done sometime that month. 

I love looking at it. I am hoping that the enthusiasm for it and the usefulness of it will continue once the novelty has worn off. 



If you want to make your own, you can print out each month. I have saved them as word documents here: DIY CALENDAR TEMPLATE