A new year means buying (or making) a new calendar and saying good-bye to the old one. But this year, I want to try to transform the images I enjoyed in 2011 into cool new stuff for 2012 -- that's what upcycling is all about, right? (And if I'm successful, I'll be making good on one of my New Year's resolutions.)Two of my favorite calendars from last year have the same theme -- Italy! They're filled with beautiful photos of places I've been or would desperately like to visit.
Each month of "A Walk in Rome" features a large photo of an area of the city. (I'd say "scenic area" but that's redundant when you're talking about Rome.)
I don't want to waste these photos. Because of their size and dimensions, they might make great placemats. If I laminated them, they'd be protected. I can see my favorite polenta dish atop the Forum now.
Another use is as a backdrop for my Etsy product photos. I make bracelets out of Scrabble tiles and images from old books, including travel ones. My Rome bracelet looks great in front of one of the calendar photos (in fact, you might think I flew there just to take the shot).
My second calendar, "365 Days in Italy," contains that many small photos of Italian locales -- mostly closeups. Some will end up on Scrabble tiles (my 7/8" square punch makes cutting these very easy). With a bit more work, I can also transform the colorful images into paper beads.
(Here's a tutorial on making paper beads from another blog.)
Finally, using my laminator again, I can transform the long thin strips of photos into bookmarks.
(But what happens to bookmarks like these in a world full of iPads, Kindles, and Nooks?)
More ideas for reusing old calendars
Other upcyclers explain how to turn old calendars into: