A Nest for All Seasons

20 July 2012

DIY Birthday Chart

Welcome! This morning I've got to share with you a project that has been on the back burner for months [MONTHS!] and it should not have been. The total project took about 30 minutes start to finish, but took ME 6 months start to finish. Ridiculous!

What is it?

Simple.

A Birthday Chart.

I don't know what your habits are, but when it comes to birthdays, my habits are LAME. I cannot remember birthdays for the life of me and always feel guilty when I miss one. I've made board after board, list after list, reminder after reminder and nothing works. I tried the facebook birthdays alert thing, but it is never early enough to actually buy a gift or send a card. I tried having a list by my bedside, but it got lost in the shuffle of gardening magazines and sudoku puzzles each night. I tried making a chalkboard with a list of birthdays, but I never looked at it.

SO.

What to do?

I needed a chart that was front and center, adaptable to adding new birthdays (we have babies popping out the wazoo in this family) AND something that looked like it fit in with our decor.

The solution?

WalMart.

No really, most of the supplies seen are from Walmart :)

So I bought these little white tags for a couple dollars for the actual birthday tags and used stamped number tags from Kristina of A Cozy Cup of Tea to mark the months. I hung the tags on little magnetic hooks, spray painted with metallic bronze to match the rest of the metals in our home.

The hooks come in a 4-pack and cost just a few dollars. The magnets are MUCH stronger than I anticipated, but the hooks themselves are small. They are perfect for this project! Those little white tags are also in the office supply section of Walmart and cost like $2 for 100 of them. I plan to use them for EVERYTHING around the house in the next few months. (You DO shop the office supply section instead of the crafting section for craft supplies don't you???? They are always at least 30%-60% cheaper there!)

I simply hung all the names behind each month tag and each month, I take the tags down, make a note on the calendar, send out cards right away and try my best to be a better daughter-in-law/cousin/aunt/daughter.

Those racks the magnets are hanging on? HERE is their story...