Lori Whitlock's Blog Hop with Birthday Calendar

Welcome to Lori Whitlock's January Blog Hop!  You should be arriving here from Corri's blog or if you're just joining in on the fun you can see the whole hop from the beginning at Lori's blog.  :)

With the start of a new year I thought it would be fun to create a perpetual Birthday calendar that I can use year after year using Lori's To Do List with Pen Holder cutting file.

I decided to decorate my cover with some of Lori's recently released birthday shapes (along with some happy papers from Doodlebug's Fruit Stand & Petite Prints collections). 

To create my title I spelled out my words using Lori's versatile Bubble Letter font (see below for a mini tutorial on how I created them on a curve.

For my interior pages I turned Lori's cutting file into a print-and-cut by typing within the shape, filling the name of each month with a color and then turning off the cut lines (for everything, but the exterior outline).

I thought it might be nice to take some screen shots during my design process to see some of the steps I took to create my little book (you can click on each of the images to view them larger).

For the words "Birthdays" and "Remember" I wanted them to curve with my mat so I created a large circle (slightly larger than my mat so that there would be a space between them).  I then typed my words (one at a time) and double clicked on them until the "+" sign appears.  Picking up the word by the plus sign and moving it the circle makes them mold to the shape you are attaching them to.  It's a super nifty trick.  I repeated it for each of the words.  Then when it came to adhering them to my project, I used the negative portion of the cut word to align them.  I used a glue pen to adhere the actual letters, lifting the negative piece off and discarding when I was finished.

For my interior calendar pages I sized my book so that I could fit two pages to an 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock.  Typing these out, printing each of them and then cutting them all took a bit of time (especially since the amount of text seemed to overwhelm the software), but now that I have them all saved they will go much quicker the next time I want to make more.  

In hindsight it probably would be quicker to create them in photoshop, import them and then insert Lori's cutting file over the top.  ;)

This last screen shot shows my cut lines and how only my exterior lines were set to cut out.

To create my calendar I used the following shapes available for purchase in Lori's shop:

• To Do List Pen Holder
• Birthday Balloon Bouquet
• Present
• Bubble Letter Font

In honor of our hop Lori is having a 30% off sale at her store as well as giving away a Snowflake Lace SVG cutting file at her blog!  :)

You're next stop on the hop is Natalie's blog!  :)

Lori Whitlock

Brigit Mann
Christine Ousley 
Corri Garza 
Mendi Yoshikawa  (You are here)
Natalie Graham 
Traci Penrod 

Chrissy Guido
Ashley Cook
Lorrie Nunemaker  
Smitha Katti
Stephanie Chavers 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  :)