Try This: DIY Felt Garland Calendar

Posted April 2nd, 2013 by raechelm & filed under Our Home, tutorials.

My sister Rebecca does cool stuff. Like the time she and her husband set out to lay a wood floor in their living room, they decided on a herringbone pattern instead of, you know, plain old boring straight lines.

All over her house are these great little details that make their home unique and eclectic and theirs. Like the giant grapevine monogram from their wedding that hangs in the dining room, or the blue, faux stained glass doors that open into her office. She does things because they feel right, and because they make sense to her, not because she’s seen it done on Pinterest or because she plans to blog about it later. Her home goes un-photographed, un-pinned, un-blogged. Because none of that is what makes her happy.

BUT … but she has a sister who happens to love blogging and photographing and pinning. Those things make her sister very happy. And so when I see projects like these, from time to time, it just feels like the world needs to know the coolness that goes on behind closed doors at my big sister’s house.

Just last fall I was in her daughter Beatrice’s room rounding up my own kiddos to go home (they live just a few miles away). I noticed a paper chain hung around the circumference of the room at the ceiling and asked her what it was.

“It’s a calendar!”

I looked closer. Sure enough, here and there I saw chain links marked for holidays or birthdays or school breaks. It wrapped all the way around the room so Beatrice could lay in bed and see the whole year at a glance. Not only was she getting an awesome grasp of time and calendars, but she could see for herself whose birthday was coming next, how long until Christmas, or how the seasons relate to one another.

Pretty darn cool.

And you can bet I wanted one of these for myself! Even beyond a bedroom, it would be awesome in a playroom or a homeschool classroom – or even an actual school classroom!

I wanted to make one for our house, but I wanted it to be more permanent. Why not plan to make our way around that calendar year after year after year?!! Paper was great, but I wondered if felt might last a little longer. I probably could have cut out 365 colored felt circles and stitched them together, but the Land of Nod has such awesome, brilliant colors in their wool felt garland already, I sat right down and got to work assigning colors to months for our playroom!