Re-using an Unused Calendar
I have started a new project. It is about repurposing an unused and expired planner/ calendar, and giving it new life. It’s the kind of enriching and fun project I love to do because it costs next to nothing (except new glue sticks) and it saves a notebook from going into the trash unusued.
I think we all have a few of them laying around somewhere? Printed calendars that you only used for a week or a month, and then forgot about? Or even (the horror!) never started on or got into? Beautiful covered, sturdy notebooks with dates from times past… Did you keep them because you felt bad about throwing away such beautiful thing? Maybe it was a dear gift that you are keeping because you think it will look ungrateful to discarded it? What ever the reason, it’s quite sad because now that it’s later – how will you ever be able to use it? Plus indeed, it is wasteful, no matter how you look at it. But you can do something with your old calendar, and that is start using it in a new way.
I know the dates are wrong, I know! But what if you covered the dates up? You could write in new dates and week numbers for the current year. Or use stickers to cover it up…. You could paint over the pages and make it into an Art Journal. You could even rip out the pages and use the cover to make a new notebook…
There is always something you could do that is (probably a lot) better than trashing it. That’s why you were made creative.
Around here, I got this old planner from my mom actually, who got it as a gift. It’s a purple, very sturdy Day-planner with a week on two spreads (it’s from 2016) by Paper Blanks, who does beautiful durable notebooks. This one is called Aubergine and it’s silver embossed, with a elastic closure and two bookmark ribbons and cream colored lined pages! Who could throw that away, right?
Purple is not mom’s favorite color, nor is it mine, but I still wanted to use it when she gave it to me to “do something with”. And I wanted to do something creative and fun, because as you know, that is what I do.
So after some consideration, I decided to make it into a glue book slash diary type of journal for myself.
Glue Book to journal in
So with my beloved glue stick in hand, I have started to cover the right hand side of all the pages with collage. I’m only using magazine images for this journal (mostly because I have a lot of that around) and I am in love with the result already.
Well, I love the result and I love all the other aspects of it too. The browsing through piles of magazines, the rinsing of them (cutting out every last bit I like and then getting rid of that magazine by putting it into the recycle bin), sorting through image folders and then finally, gluing things down that are colorful, happy, beautiful or simple interesting to me (those are my categories for choosing images I guess).
I started with about 2-3 spreads, then the next day I journaled on the first spread, and I loved it. I like the look of the different photographs and my handwriting together.
Love it.
So now I will keep working on it further through summer. I will be adding in things to my Aubergine re-purposed calendar and turning it into my current diary. A summer diary I guess, because now summer is here!
Do you like the idea? If you try it out let me know.
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I love this idea!! I like it even more than just using it as a calendar! I used to journal faithfully in high school, but have only ever gotten back into it every once in a while. I’ll start for a couple weeks, but then life gets busy and it falls by the wayside again. And I feel guilty. Maybe I should look at it as a craft I do sometimes when it feels fun (or when I desperately need to get my thoughts down on paper), instead of feeling guilty that I don’t journal every day anymore. Try to let go of the guilt and enjoy the process when I want to. Probably much easier said than done. But I truly love how you’re breathing new life into your “new journal”! Incredibly clever and so very pretty!! Thanks for sharing this with us!
It looks lovely, and happy, and I do like purple as it happens! So maybe I like it even more.
Yes yes yes!!! I love this (and purple is my fave colour)! I have done this with an old planner in the past and like you I just chose magazine pics that I loved and started gluing! It’s always a shame to throw away books with blank pages because there is just so much potential there…even in books with printed pages!
Thanks for stopping by on my blog – it was lovely to see you!!
What a great idea and such a beautiful colour!
What a brilliant idea and a gorgeous result. I’m itching to have a go now! 😊
No magazines though, I’ll have to have a think of alternative, hmm…
Funny because I have some mainly unused calendar books with random weeks days filled in (ADHD) & i always look through them wishing there was a way to keep the pages of memories written. Now I can! I will just create around the memories written, maybe expand & reflect on those & then I can keep the book, use it, & not just rip pages to forget about them anyways! Thank you sooooo much for this idea!
Jeanine, yes to all this!
Love this idea….I made my first gluebook using an old half used agenda. If you google when can I reuse this calendar, it will give you sites and years that you can use the agenda with the right year even if it is old. Thanks for reminding me to go to my craft room and dig up an old agenda/calendar book. Even though I am only 4 years late to see your site, I am loving it!!!c
I’ve done this recently! It’s cool seeing the out come of the things I’m gluing into place.
love the idea and hope to use it on my next junk journal. or maybe a memory book. who knows.
So glad this idea sparked something in you! :)
Like this idea so much. Thanks for sharing