I've made a perpetual calendar!

The unexpected sale of a calendar on Friday got me thinking.....

If one customer wanted a calender at an unorthodox time of the year, why wouldn't another and why should they have to waste the months which have already passed?

This led me to tweak my design and turn my 2010 calendar into a perpetual calendar, one which can be used for any year.

This is how the pages look now - I think that they look pleasingly more simple than with the addition of the day line at the top, that little bit more space works well.

Perpetual Calendar in Clear Frame from Eyeshoot at Etsy - $22

I'm still waiting on that Treasury and have rather irritatingly just missed T West by a nano second.....my time will come!

What a happy sight!

....A pile of five desk calenders in cases all printed, cut, made up, wrapped and ready to go!

I've sold one to Barcelona, one to Finland and four to my mum (which still counts!).

When I started to make them I realised that I had really messed up the sizes - precision never was my strong point! I faffed around trying to make it better, but it just got worse and worse and trimming each individual page by hand just wasn't fun. So I did what I should have done in the first place and set up a proper Master Page and started from scratch. Then it worked perfectly and I was happy and my printer was churning out sheets of Super A3 as fast as it could and my super sharp scalpel skimmed over my crop marks and we were done. Wrapped, packed and two posted.

The flat is, yet again, resembling a bomb site as loads of stuff which we'd been storing at mum's has now come back here to torment us. It's everywhere, boxes and boxes of stuff, my old school trunk, clothes which I don't wear but don't want to chuck out (Ebay is calling), my long ignored violin and even my lacrosse stick. And we have people coming for supper and here I am blogging with about 40 minutes to arrival. The Chinese red braised lamb shanks are slowly turning suculent and sticky in the oven and smelling divine, the spuds are in a big pot of water waiting to be turned to smooth and creamy mash, there's a pile of green veg to be plunged into a pan of boiling water, then we're ready to go. To start we've a spicy prawn cocktail with a coconut dressing and to finish, I'm admitting to a cheat and serving a Gu Torte, which is far better than anything I could have managed in my super busy day today, so I shall not feel guilty.

It's the Etsy Made in Manchester meeting tomorrow morning, there will only be three of us but we have decided to go ahead and have a gossip and lots of tea, it's always nice to have a catch up. Then there's a lunch at Al Faisal's with various friends and then I have every intention to get to Jacobs to purchase a new happy-snappy camera as I really don't like not having one on me all the time and I am convinced that I have missed hundreds of shots in my happy-snappyless time.

Then there's a birthday party in the evening, then on Sunday lunch at mum's for the first time in her temporary for six months flat. I hope she's worked out how to use the oven, dad's up for a few days too.

Print your own 2010 Eyeshoot Calendar.

After much faffing and putting aside of the whole thing, I've finally finished and listed the Print Your Own version of my 2010 calendar. I've still not sold one yet, which is slightly offputting, but there you go. Hopefully this will change all of that!

I've made the layout so that it can be printed on both A4 and nice and conveniently on US Letter for my lovely American customers. I wonder what the standard paper size is across Europe, I've never thought about it.

The images are exactly the same as for the main calendar which comes in the case and I really hope that someone likes it.....

Print your own Eyeshoot 2010 Calendar - A bargain $10

Click here to buy without going to Etsy.

Eyeshoot's First Calendar has been born!

I've finally finished my 2010 calendar - for the last couple of years I've wanted to do one but just haven't got around to it, but this year I seem to have got my act together! I think it looks great - I especially like the clear cd style cases, they're so simple and effective. I plan to make a 'print it yourself' version as well and possibly a version all on one page like a poster as I've seen other that sell well on that layout and now I've got the artwork sorted out I can tweak it to my heart's content!

The images are a collection of my favourites all of which have been for sale in my Etsy shop, some are very good sellers, others undiscovered gems!

You can find it here.





I've been very busy lately which shows in the scarcity of posts here.....I've had plenty to say and show, but haven't quite got around to it. I was working in London for three days with mum last week which was hard work, but it's always nice to be there for a while. We had a terrible journey home, arriving back late on Thursday and then the next morning, Peter and I drove for seven hours to start our long weekend in Dartmouth for a family wedding. I took photos as a freebie, I haven't even looked at them yet & we have the happy couple staying with us on Wednesday this week so I'd better get my skates on and at least do a first edit. On Thursday we're off to stay with our friends in Henley and in the evening going to The Young Vic to see one of Peter's sons in a play called Lub You at the Young Vic. The short play was in the 24:7 theatre festival in Manchester this summer and was voted as one of the three most popular plays which let to a short run at the Bolton Octagon and then to London. There's a great website designed by Peter and built by anther of his sons.

I've been planning and cooking a supper tonight for seven for what seems like forever. We're just having a swift g&t while we wait for our guests to arrive. On the menu:
Smoked Mackerel Mousse with capers and salad leaves.
Boeuf Bourguignon with new pototoes and green veg.
Pears poached in spiced vanilla syrup with chocolate sauce.
Brie with garnishes.

I need a holiday.