It's that time of year again … CM has product credits on sale for Custom Calendars this month at 20% off, and digital artwork for your calendars is on sale for 30% off. With the holidays coming in no time, this is a great deal for a fun Christmas gift.
You may have heard this from me before, but my husband now INSISTS that I create one of these calendars for his side of the family every year. I made one for the 2010 calendar year when they were first released, and then didn't get it done for the following year. He heard from my mother-in-law that it was harder to remember everyone's birthdays without it, so I was heavily coerced to never make that mistake again!
If you haven't checked out the options for Custom Calendars, they have grown over the years. (You'll have to click on the links to see pics … I can't use CM's photos.)
- The first thing that you probably think of is the 12×18 wall calendar. This is a nice-sized calendar, maybe a little bit larger than what you'll typically find in the store. The bottom 6×12 section on each page holds the calendar information, and can be removed after use to leave a nice 12×12 page keepsake on top.
- The calendar above has a little sister, the 8×12 wall calendar. It works the same way, but you come away with an 8×8 keepsake page in this size. This one is nice if you don't have a large amount of wall space.
- Last year, CM also introduced a Desk Calendar option, which makes a great gift for Mom or Dad to take to work. And you still get to keep a 4×6 keepsake photo from this calendar when the month is done. Just slide it into a Picfolio album to keep it for years to come.
- And last but not least, this is an option you won't find on the CM Digital Center. I've blogged about this before, but I still love to use Storybook Creator Plus (now in 4.0) to create 4×6 calendar sheets that will slide nicely into a Picfolio Minutes album. Voila! You've got a 12 page calendar with room on the flip side to hold cute photos or even favorite recipes! You can slide things in and out as you go and reuse the album for years to come.
As for the digital artwork options for calendars, there are more options this year than ever. There are now:
- Pre-designed pages for 12×18 and 8×12 calendars
- Calendar embellishments, for marking special days and the like
- Specialty or Themed calendar page sets, for special years in someone's life
- And of course, click n' fill calendar pages where you can really make it your own
- Free calendar templates*
* One thing to note about these free calendar templates: free templates these days are made in a “flattened” manner, which means you can use it in Storybook Creator Plus 4.0, but you won't be able to unlock and modify attributes on the page. If that works for you, by all means, do it. But just be aware that you won't have the flexibility that you normally have with templates in Storybook Creator.
I hope this at least helps you get started on thinking about how you might be able to take advantage of this deal on Custom Calendars this month. Just remember, you'll have to order your calendar or product credit by October 31st to get the deal!
Until the next time, Enjoy!
~ Deb