This is my favorite post to work on of the WHOLE YEAR.
I buy five wall calendars each year: one for the kitchen (the main one where I write appointments and so forth); one for next to my desk (for all blog/computer-related stuff); and one for each of the three kid rooms.
I’ve bought one calendar already:
(image from Amazon.com)
Pusheen the Cat calendar. I bought this back in MAY, which is completely atypical (I usually don’t even THINK of ordering anything until I’m working on this post in December), but Pusheen is so huge at our house I KNEW we’d want one and I was worried it might sell out. This might be the kitchen/family/main calendar this year, because I know it’s one we’ll all like, and because I think there might be fighting if I try to choose which kid room gets it.
(image from Amazon.com)
Lunar calendar. This glows in the dark, which seems especially nice for a kid room—and they don’t write on their calendars, so it doesn’t matter that the background is black. (A reviewer remarked that you CAN write on it with silver Sharpie marker.)
(image from Amazon.com)
Pocket Pigs calendar. Two strong selling points: the review I THOUGHT said “Good quality pigs” (it actually said “Good quality, lovely pigs”—meaning presumably that the calendar is of good quality, not the pigs) and the words “pocket pigs.”
(image from Amazon.com)
Hedgehogs calendar. HEDGEHOGS.
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Hyperbole and a Half calendar. I loved this book so much that when I saw there was a CALENDAR I thought “That’s it: office calendar decided.” But when I looked at the sample pages and considered having each of them up for a full month, I thought maybe I’d rather re-read the book.
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The Mathematics calendar. I bought this for Paul as usual. It has a math problem on each day. He takes the calendar to work and he and his geek friends work on it.
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Farmer’s Market calendar. I had this one for 2014. A very satisfying calendar. I’m thinking of framing some of the pages.
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David Olenick calendar. I like it! It has the “I’m not sure I want to experience the same joke for a whole month” issue, but the kids might like that.
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Treehouses of the World calendar. This one tempts me every year.
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Wild Bird Woodcuts calendar. I like this one, maybe for the kitchen or maybe for my office (Elizabeth, looking at the shelf of knickknacks on my desk shelf: “What’s with all your…BIRD stuff?”).
(image from Amazon.com)
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Caterpillar calendar. This makes me feel a little sentimental about Toddler Rob, who lovvvvved construction vehicles.
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Zoo Portraits calendar. I love it. This is a finalist for me.
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Animal Portraits calendar. This one too.
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This is London calendar. This is another I consider every year, along with This is Paris, This is New York, and now This is Australia.
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Lotta Jansdotter calendar. Finalist for next to my desk. The last two years I’ve had a vintage wallpaper calendar, and this seems similar.
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Clueless calendar. TEMPTING.
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World Travel Vintage Poster calendar.
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American Cities Vintage Posters calendar.
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Things Come Apart calendar. This would be great for one of the kid rooms.
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The Colors of Fashion calendar. I am not even what I’d call INTERESTED in fashion, and yet I think this would be fun to look at.
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New Yorker Covers calendar. Finalist for kitchen or desk.
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Rob Ryan calendar. I like the papercuts very much, but the sayings are not my style.
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Flower Recipe calendar. A clever and pleasing concept.
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Tiffany calendar. So pretty.
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Cats in Sweaters calendar. Elizabeth will want this one, I’ll bet.
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Hieronymus Bosch calendar. WHAT AM I EVEN LOOKING AT.
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A Fishing Lure Every Day calendar. A fishing lure EVERY DAY.
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Dena calendar. Oh, wow, that is FANCY. It doesn’t have enough writing room to be the kitchen calendar, but definitely a possibility for my desk.
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Fruit Crate Labels calendar. This is the kind of decor I have in the kitchen, so it would go well. On the other hand, because this is the kind of decor I have in the kitchen, it might feel a little boring.
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1950s Patterns calendar. This is so similar to the wallpaper calendar I’ve had two years in a row, I’m not sure I want to do it—but these are so exactly the kinds of patterns I like, and THIS year’s wallpaper calendar was a bit of a disappointment so I feel this would be an opportunity for a redo.
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Mid-Century Modern Wallpaper calendar. Another option.
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Historic San Francisco calendar. I saw these historic calendars for a BUNCH of places.
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Foxes calendar. I still love foxes.
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Vintage Postcards calendar. I also still love postcards.
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Maisy calendar. Oh, Maisy! I miss Maisy!
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Minecraft calendar. We had one last year and it was popular; if I remember correctly, we had to flip a coin to decide which kid room got to have it. Maybe this year we could do it for another kid room.
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And as always, I am interested to know what calendar YOU are choosing for 2015, if you still use a calendar and get to choose it!
When I got out the Christmas books this year I asked my 8 year old if she thought we should give away Maisy’s Christmas and Maisy Makes Gingerbread and she was aghast, so Maisy still lives at our house (at Christmas anyway).
We have used Rifle Paper Company calendars for a few years and I love them. Some of these are so awesome, I may switch this year.
I have had the Sandra Boynton one for many years as our main calendar, but I think I need a change this year. Thanks for this, can’t wait to check all of these out.
Your comment for the Heironymus Bosch Calendar is so perfect that I laughed out loud.
For years I’ve had the pretty Rifle Paper Co calendars, but I’m tired of spending over $20 on one calendar, so I got the little kraft paper $5.99 one from Target this year. It’s by Sugar Paper. It doesn’t have any pictures, but I figured I’d use the space to hang a decoration on the wall.
That said, I love the Lunar one. That’s tempting.
I order calendars for our office and I *just* placed an order yesterday. But I love some of these SO MUCH that I actually went back and cancelled two and replaced them with vintage cities and things come apart.
This is very pleasing!
Do you play minecraft with your kids? I can’t wait until mine are old enough to play with me. I love it!
They gave me a tutorial recently!
I might go for this one – I love sea glass: http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Glass-2015-Wall-Calendar/dp/0989580091/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=00M5TWFW3HVZB8M1FJ6G
I’ve tried the big family calendar (Sandra Boynton) and it sort of worked for organizing family activities, but since we’re always getting asked about scheduling stuff when we’re not in our kitchen, we now use a shared Google calendar to keep track of everything. We can look up if we’re free and add stuff from our phones on the go. I sync it with my work calendar at least once a week so if I need to stay home unexpectedly I know who to contact about meetings scheduled that day.
I have not abandoned paper altogether though: they’re too small to write on, but I make mini-calendars out of my own photography, and one of them lives on a little stand on my desk for quick “Am I free to sub an evening class on January13th? What day of the week is that?” questions. My office colleagues go nuts for them – I didn’t realize how much until I skipped a year and everyone was disappointed – so I give them to members of my team as Christmas presents.
Every year I make a photo calendar for my family members, and every year I get confused when I sign in to Shutterfly. “WAIT. How is there already a 2014 calendar?! Oh, right.”
I like a daily tear-off desk calendar for my desk at work, and I randomly got the Keep Calm and Carry On one last year because someone gave me a B&N gift card for about $10, and all the calendars were on sale by that point. Ringing endorsement, eh? But I ended up LOVING it. The quotes are very encouraging to me, and I save the ones that resonate strongly. I’ve used them for bookmarks or notes or even glued to cardstock as “handmade” cards. Sometimes, the calendar has been eerily in line with what is happening with my life. Anyway! Totes asked for the 2015 edition for Christmas this year.
Also, I splurge in a pretty calendar for the kitchen. It’s purely decorative, but I view it as something I see every day and am willing to spend more money on. (I have repurposed the panels as art, soooo, more cost justification?) This year, I saw this calendar about world cuisine at a local tea shop and SNATCHED IT UP IMMEDIATELY. It is so adorable and just right for a kitchen, and I can’t wait to put it up.
I have the 2014 version of this one on my desk at home: http://www.snowandgraham.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=899&parentCat=&catId=32
I asked for a refill of it for Christmas, because it’s pretty, but I don’t see that they carry refills. Oh well. My co-worker, who is from Hawaii, just gave me a 2015 calendar of Kauai that I will keep at work. Sunsets, beaches – it reminds me of my honeymoon (we went to Kauai and Maui on our honeymoon).
In our kitchen at home, we use a dry-erase monthly calendar to keep us all in the loop. It’s boring though.
I always get a Paper Source wall art calendar. ( http://www.papersource.com/item/2015-Paper-Source-Wall-Art-Calendar/3303-051/842612052868.html) I don’t like the price, so I check the site obsessively until they go half-price in February and we just keep up the previous year’s January. I love the variety of pictures…this year had sloths, popsicles, constellations, etc., and they have templates on the back so you can cut out notecards, file folders, gift boxes, etc. when you are done.
This is my go-to calendar, too! I keep it in my office, and it offers some really nice decompression opportunities when you just need to do some arts and crafts at work for 15 minutes. I’m a bit disappointed in the 2015 images, because I loved the sloths, donuts, and constellations so much this year and the new one doesn’t seem as fun.
I will get my husband a Spanish Word of the Day calendar again this year for Christmas and I am tempted by this Lego calendar for the kids (http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Brick-Calendar-853195) if I can find it but I am concerned that if they lose pieces I will be annoyed.
I wait every year for you to post this so I can select my wall calendars! I get two: one for home and one for work (so I guess equivalent is kitchen/office). I also keep a moleskine planner in my purse.
This year I’m going to get the Farmer’s Market one for the house and Animal Portraits for work.
For work I like to select one that I enjoy looking at, that won’t cause TOO MUCH conversation about my calendar, yet people will enjoy. A tricky balance.
I always love this calendar post! I’ve had “This is San Francisco” as my wall work calendar the past two years thanks to seeing it here. These are cheery, retro-flavored pages that I don’t mind looking at for a month. It also gets noticed by coworkers. I did make an early purchase of “Historic Charleston” because Amazon marked it way down at one point and so I grabbed one for the office. We have a Golden Retriever so my husband always buys me a GR calendar for the kitchen in honor of dear Tilly. Hoping 2015 is a great year for you!
I looked at “Keep it Shrimple Stupid” and WATCH OUT! The December picture is a penguin who says, “I am **cking freezing.” Maybe not for the kids’ rooms. !! (Still, pretty funny jokes in that one.)
So many! It will take me many FUN hours to read (study) this whole post!
Oh, and we use by default our school’s paper calendar. It’s blue and gold and totally boring but it has many of our important days already printed on it, so… I hate having too many calendars so I don’t ever really buy other ones for me. But for the kids’ rooms, maybe. :) (clearly I love this post every year though)
I use google calendar for my family organization stuff–BUT I keep a calendar in the kitchen, and each of my gils has one. Oh and I keep one at work. I buy none of them!
What happens is my college sends me a college calendar every year (I gave them money for over 20 years so that’s a perk!) and I take this one to my office. My MIL buys the others. Usually she gets me a butterfly calendar. Usually photos which I LOVE, but the 2014 one is drawings which I find–I don’t really love. She gets one of my girls a panda calendar (from WWF) and the other one gets one for whatever she happens to be interested in (one year it was titanic, one year photos from all over the world, 2014 was beautiful places in Michigan–she was tickled that our town was featured one month).
We used to buy a page a day for the desk at home, but we didn’t for 2014 and got along fine, so I don’t know if we will buy one for 2015 or not.
OH I also make a shutterfly one for my MIL–that I give to her on Mother’s day (you can pick and this one goes June 1-May 31) I picked that up the year after my brother in law stopped getting her one for Christmas.
Charlie Harper. I love the designs.
Parenting with Crappy Illustrations. There is a wall version, too. http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Illustrated-Pictures-Engagement-Calendar/dp/162343534X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418234002&sr=8-3&keywords=parenting+with+crappy+pictures
Every year at Christmas, I make myself insane making family calendars through shutterfly. I make a version for my brother of just him and my girls, a version for my in laws of the girls and my husband’s family, a version for my dad’s entire side of the family at family events that basically sort out to monthly, a family calendar for my parents of the girls mainly with my mom’s and my dad’s side of the family and a version for us that combines all of that. I sift through thousands of pictures I take all year, add a flattering picture of each family member to their birthday, keep track of new babies, marriages, death and divorces. I only put the birthdays of the pertinent family members on the appropriate calendar. It is a process that takes days. You better believe that I hang that calendar in the kitchen.
Then I order a Charley Harper planner for my purse. :)
Oh I do this too! I once got a photo book for my mom with family photos throughout the year and realized it’s leafed through once then put on a shelf; the next year I switched to iPhoto calendars because you get a new set of photos every month throughout the year. Now I make one for my maternal grandmother (because she likes having pictures of my mom included but doesn’t want any pictures of herself), one for my mom (because she likes having pictures of my grandmother included but doesn’t want many pictures of herself and wouldn’t want any pictures of my dad and his side of the family), and one for my dad and stepmother (who wouldn’t want any pictures of my mom or her mom).
I take thousands of photos in the year, so winnowing through them to get my favourites every month takes awhile (a week’s worth of evenings if I put it all together probably), and then it takes me a full 1/2 day to produce the calendars from the few hundred photo finalists.
I use Photoshop to tweak a few photos that have serious issues with lighting or white balance, but for the majority of images I just import my RAW files directly and use the built-in adjustments available in iPhoto. The calendars are good quality and always turn out great, and their recipients LOVE all the pictures of their grandkids/great-grandkids.
Every year I look forward to your calendar post! I always smile about the math calendar for Paul, too. HEDGEHOGS. POCKET PIGS. Love this whole list!
I just odered this one. So excited to get it. http://www.amazon.com/Hangin-Sloths-2015-Wall-Calendar/dp/0761179240/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418240122&sr=1-1&keywords=sloth+calendar
Pusheen was a close second. Very tempted to order a hedgehog calendar too now..
I make photo calendars every year for our family BUT my dad and his friend are building a wooden boat together and last year I found him a Chris Craft (wooden boat) calendar that he kept in his workshop, so maybe I’ll look for another one of those for him.
Oh, yay! I love the annual calendar post. You always find the best ones that I never seem to stumble across!
I received a calendar from my cousin that depicts art from the Prado Museum in Madrid. I love it so much! I will be buying my niece a calendar though and I like some of your choices a lot, especially the Lotta Jansdotter one. They all seem a lot more cheerful that the one I picked for myself last year which was a calendar of British war paintings.
My favorite local overstock book store already has calendars on sale for $5 (I usually go in January for their $2 sale, but I “splurged” this year!). I picked up my Little Critters calendar for my classroom (lots of cute Owls) and the Lotta Jansdottir for myself. http://search.daedalusbooks.com/searchkeywords=calendar&Search=&txtMedia=&image1.x=0&image1.y=0
They have almost all from your list! (I swear I don’t work there, just enjoy shopping!)
I love this post every year! I put that construction calendar right into my Amazon cart for my almost 5-year-old. So great! And even though I absolutely don’t need a calendar at all due to using my iPhone + my work calendar being a shared online server dealie, I think I’m going to buy that bird woodcut calendar anyway, because it is GORGEOUS.
Also, went through the comments and I love the Lego calendar Wendy posted! Tempted to get that one for my desk at work since I constantly need to verify that I’m correctly matching days of the week to dates in field trip confirmation emails that I send out.
I always get the Austin Events calendar and then only pay attention to said Events through like mid-February. But HEDGEHOGS.
Sarah and duck 18? Month calendar and previously two years of Charlie and lola (half our household is under five) nd everytime i look at it makes me smile :)
I bought two off of and beCAUSE of this list! I purchased the Treehouses of the World (or whatever) for my brother-in-law, and the “This is New York” calendar for my office! Whee!
I do my book round-up post for the previous year in January, so I’m always typing “year-end book round-up” while thinking “year-beginning” would actually be more accurate, but not quite right.
I order one hideously expensive art calendar from Redbubble for the kitchen (I can’t find the one I ordered, but it has this picture in it – http://www.redbubble.com/people/catrinarno/works/7729972-moonwalk), and try to write all our stuff in it. It mostly works.