December, January, and 2013 in review in my never ending monthly calendar

Once again I'm joining Kate at The Kathryn Wheel with my never ending monthly calendar.  Last year she asked us to show a wrap-up of our 2012 calendar pages, so I'm going to do that again this year.  Please note I hadn't intended to post this until late tonight, but when I saw Kate's post was up, I quickly added mine.

Those of you who were here at the end of last year saw I decided to use file folders as the substrate for my monthly calendar pages.  I was DETERMINED to not buy anything new, but from the very beginning I hated these.  They didn't fit well in the book, and I couldn't leave the entire book on my nightstand, where I always write in my calendar each evening.  That meant I had to deal with individual file folders each month until the page was completed.  If you want to see the minutia, you may click on each page for a better view.

and finally, December completed.

If you dropped by last month, I noted I had broken down and bought a new art journal to create my calendar pages in.  As much as I hated the file folders, I'm stuck with this horrible pad of worthless paper (and I paid a LOT for it, too) for two years.  It's too small to actually hold a calendar page and create any decorations along the way, and too large to scan in one piece.

As you will also note below, the paper is too thin to accept ink, dye, or paint.  I sprayed shimmering mists (handmade)  on the back side after I sprayed the front side and allowed it to dry.  As you can see, some of the red for February bled through.

I decided to cut out and use any squares with dates that had either holidays or lunar references.  I also wanted to get a feel for how much room I would need for each day.  As you can see, this is definitely a case of measure twice, stamp once.  And since I'm not really a stamper, it has turned into a nightmare where various semi-cuss words had poor Bleubeard scurrying into hiding!

Sorry for the diatribe.  I hope to see your calendar if you are linked to Kate's blog, since I'm not on the other social media sites.  And have a very happy New Year, filled with fun, frolic, good days, and great looking calendar pages!!