Free Printable Birthday Calendar

I don't know about you, but I have really been trying to figure out the best system for keeping track of birthdays. I have a pretty good memory, but I have lots of new family and friends to keep track of these days. Facebook is helpful, but it only tells you a few days before and not everyone is on Facebook. I've tried various methods...saving an email, updating in my iCal, writing it in on a normal calendar but they never seem to work out. My hard drive crashes, I forget to look at the email, I throw away the calendar at the end of the year, etc. SO, I've been wanting somewhere to write down birthdays that I can keep year after year and that looks nice at my desk.

Somewhere, in the vast space that is the internet, I saw a birthday calendar where you could write in the birthdays of friends and family for each month and I decided to make my own! And I thought I would share it with you!

{ If I missed your birthday, just know that I just did this quickly purely for the sake of pictures :) }

After I cut out the calendar, I punched a hole at the top of each month and hung them on my craft pegboard. But you could easily put a binder ring clip on them or put them on your fridge with a magnet.



You can download the Birthday Calendar for free by clicking the link and then the download button on the new page it opens. My internet is not cooperating with me today, but I'll hopefully be able to fix it into a direct download later. For now, this works! Click here to download the PDF

Laundry Room Lifesaver

When you come through our back door, you walk into a little mud room/laundry area. Up until recently, I had NO counter space in there. I just had a small shelf and the tops of my appliances. Boo! Young House Love gave me the great idea of putting a board on top of our washer and dry to create a nice surface. They went a few steps further and put blinds to hide shelving and even put some art. Looks nice, doesn't it?



Now, I haven't done anything that drastic (yet), but let me tell you, having this new counter space has been AMAZING. Having a place to put the basket and place to fold clothes...Heavenly.

To begin this simple project, Adam and I stopped by Lowe's and found a piece of wood, with the top covered in white laminate. The bottom of the piece was chipped, so Adam asked for a discount. We got the whole laminate board for $8. He then cut the board to fit in our space. We laid down a non-slip mat meant for a rug on top of the washer/dryer. (This protects your appliances as well as keeps your board in place). And ta-da! You have a nice counter space! I bought 2 small baskets for $5 to keep laundry supplies and Sawyer's treats/daily walk supplies.

(Yes, that shelf is hung incorrectly. Some day we'll fix it!)

The bonus of this space? It's also great to work on larger scale projects. My craft desk isn't quite big enough for things like wrapping presents, so this space doubles as a craft area.
Next time we get out the white paint (hopefully when we start painting the bathroom, we'll paint that edge to give it a more finished look.

Have a happy weekend! I'll be posting our experience with the gutter shelves Monday!