Birthday Calendar | Free Download

A few weeks ago, I gave you a peek at a project I did for a guest post at Just Us Four. Today I'm going to reveal what I made: a Dutch birthday calendar you can download and personalize for your own family!

When I wrote this post, I'm was still a little jet-lagged from our family's nearly month-long visit to the Netherlands, where all of my husband's family lives. It had been 2.5 years since our last visit, so what we lack in frequency, we try to make up in duration!

Because we get back to the Netherlands so infrequently, we tend to stock up on a lot of our favorite things when we are there. There's one thing I like to stock up on that is uniquely Dutch, brilliant, and just the thing to share with you by way of introducing you to my love of organization, my attempts to reduce our use of paper, and my appreciation of Dutch culture. I'm  talking about the verjaardagskalendar, pronounced ver-YAR-digh-CAL-en-der

A verjaardagskalendar is a perpetual birthday and anniversary calendar. (Dutch lesson of the day: verjaardag = birthday). Instead of filling out birthdays and anniversaries on a new calendar every year, this perpetual calender has lines and dates, but no days of the week. Pretty smart, right?

Now, here's the brilliant part. I've been in many Dutch homes, and the birthday calender is always found in the same place. It's not the kitchen, or by the computer or office area, as I might have guessed. Nope, it's in the main floor bathroom. Every.single.time. (Because most houses in the Netherlands are built up rather than out, the main floor usually has only one bathroom, right by the front door).

One of the fun things about marrying someone from a different culture is discovering those things that seem so ordinary to one, while being rather surprising to the other. When I asked Niels why the calendar is in the bathroom he shrugged his shoulders and said that it's the one room in the house that's used every day, and when you are there, you usually have a moment to sit and think. (Clearly, we had this conversation in our pre-child days!)

We have added a verjaardagskalendar to our powder room, with a little note inviting friends and family to add their information.

In a few weeks, our son will be starting pre-K, and his world will start to include friends from school. We brought home a special birthday calendar for his bathroom.

Now that D is potty trained, he has little book shelf  doesn't need to quite so many books to entertain him while he's taking care of business. 

So, if you don't happen to live in the Netherlands, or have family there to visit, how can you get your hands on your own birthday calendar? Fortunately, Amazon has started to carry a few, like this sea glass-themed birthday calendar (<---affiliate link). If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can make something like Alissa at Crafty Endeavor's bottle cap birthday calendar. Another option is to make a trendy chalkboard birthday calendar like my friend Lauren at The Thinking Closet. A little-known gift lurking in your Microsoft Word program is a selection of birthday calendars. When you open a new document, search the online templates for "birthday calendar." As I write this, there are three options.

Or, as a special gift to you, I have created a custom birthday calendar for you. 

You can download this pdf  for your personal use. 

Just print on card stock, and add your own 4x6 photos, like this:

Add birthdays and anniversaries. If known, I like to add the year, as well.

I blurred the names of the innocent.

Punch a hole, add a ring, and you are ready to go!

If the bathroom seems like a strange place for your calendar, consider another area you see every day, like the frig. 

A big thanks to Shannah at Just Us Four  for letting me guest post. You can follow her on Facebook,  Pinterest, Blog Lovin', Google+, and/or Twitter,

And if you aren't already, you can follow us, too! 

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Bathroom Art Update

Here's a look at the most recent tweak to our family bathroom. 

Last summer, I made the cute bathroom art on PowerPoint after seeing something similar on Pinterest.

The only frames I had were black ones, so that's what I used:

There were fine, if not exactly what I wanted. But then I put up the chair rail photo gallery, with photos of our son's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

We lived several states to an ocean away from our family, so this is a great way to help our son remember who is who. Every morning and night he gives kisses to his family. (His favorite is my sister's dog, Meryl!)

I just love how it turned out. I especially love the blue and red frames.

The fun red and blue frames made me want to replace the black frames for the art. Alas, Ikea is two hours away. Finally, over Easter, we were in Toronto and were able to pop into the Ikea there. And wouldn't you know it, they were out of the Nyttja 8-1/2 x11 frames. I decided to get the next size up and make it work.

I found some cute striped wrapping paper at Target. (By the way, has anyone else noticed how hard it is to find wrapping paper that is not tied to a season or event?) If the frames were smaller, I could have used scrapbook paper, but I didn't want to have to piece together the paper. I was able to simply use the plastic insert as a template to cute the size I needed.

I also slightly modified the background of each sheet and printed them on photo paper to give them a glossier finish. Of course, I used command strips to hang them up. Best of all, the larger frames covered up the nail holes for the days of old when we didn't know how much easier pictures are to hang with command strips! 

If you'd like the full bathroom tour, check out the reveal.

Hard to believe we're making updates when we've only been in the house for a year, but that's the fun of  living in our dream house now that we're done planning and building it!

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Chair Rail Photo Gallery

One of the challenges of being an international family is that our son does not get a lot of face time with his closest relatives. We're in Ohio, Niels' entire family is in the Netherlands, my mom is in Arizona and everyone else is in Minnesota. Our four-year-old has an impressive grasp of geography, and as we prepare for our first trip back to the Netherlands in more than two years, we want to make sure he knows his family, too. 

For this reason, I've been toying around with ideas. Because D has long loved flashcards, we've put photos on cards at different times. But I wanted something more permanent. It should surprise no one that I decided on a photo gallery! We already have a heritage gallery, but for now the shelves are too high for D to see every day. I wanted something at his eye level and fun for him to study, so each photo includes the person's relationship and name. The solution? A chair rail made of photos!

The hardest part, as always, was deciding on the photos. We were in Minnesota last summer for my youngest sister's wedding, so we say everyone on my side recently. Finding photos of our Dutch family that had the orientation I wanted--vertical for grandparents, horizontal for everyone else--was more a challenge. 

When I first started this project, months ago, I planned to put each person's name on the frame. 

But I decided I liked the words directly on the photos instead. Pic Monkey made this super easy. 

Just like I did in D's printable gallery, I used Ikea's fun blue and red Nyttja frames. 

I am totally sold on command strips for hanging photos. I have to reposition...a lot. My walls are very grateful that I discovered these things. These frames are super light so I cut the medium strips I had on hand in half, otherwise I would have just used the small strips. 

I only used the strips on the top and bottom of the frames. On heavier frames, like on the growing up gallery, we put strips on all four sides.

I have a hard time stopping a project when I'm so close to finishing, but our daughter-on-loan had a choir concert, so my frames patiently waited until we were back home and the kids were in bed. (Don't mind that loose strip. It was easy enough to fix before I put up the frame). 

I decided to put the gallery in the family bathroom. The long wall across from the vanity was just the right length. I lined up the first frame against the door jamb of the shower/toilet part of the bathroom. 

I put photos of the grandparents in blue vertical frames. The red frames are hung horizontally with the aunts and uncles on top, with their children underneath them. I placed the frames flush and used the level to make sure my line was straight.

I think it took me all of ten minutes to put up all thirteen frames. Hooray for command strips! 

I did take a moment to adjust the bathroom art that hung on the wall previously. I'm going to replace the black frames with blue and red frames next time we go to Ikea. I really wish it wasn't two hours away! On the plus side, the distance gives me time to decide whether or not I'll keep the same arrangement, pull them together flush like the chair rail, or keep the same shape but make the frames bigger. Any votes from our dear readers?

The new view from the vanity.  

This morning D was so cute when he saw all the photos. He said, "Hey! I know those people!" and immediately started passing out kisses. Mission accomplished.

I still have a few more galleries to do, but here's a quick look at the galleries we've completed so far.

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If you want more details about our bathroom, take a tour!

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Click below to follow our photo gallery board on Pinterest.


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Finished Family Bathroom Tour

I am happy to report that after four months in our new house, we have one room that I consider done. It's the family bathroom. Funny how the kid rooms get our attention first. We've been working hard to finish our guest room and bathroom because our exchange student is coming in six weeks. So, without further adieu...

Welcome to our bathroom.

The color is Sherwin Williams Solaria. D's favorite color for the past year (at least!) has been yellow. He wanted a yellow bedroom, so we compromised with the bathroom and his closet. We wanted a cheerful yellow, not gold or neon. It also needed to be bright enough for this bathroom, which has no natural light, and yet not be washed out in the bathroom downstairs, which is full of natural light. We really like how it turned out.

On the other wall, we have the vanity and linen closet.

The granite is Venetian Gold. We weren't planning to put granite in the bathrooms, but the beauty of using remnants is that our cost ended up being less than the solid surface we had planned to use. 

The floor was an adventure. Originally, we put down Konecto Exotic Woods Bamboo >Luxury Vinyl Tile planks, in Caramel. But apparently we got a bum batch because it started peeling up within weeks. Our vendor was wonderful and quickly replaced it with a very similar looking LVT. Our new floor, shown below, is Armstrong's Natural Creations Arbor Art Strip Bamboo in Caramel. 

The one thing we did overly well in our house is plan for storage. In our old house, we had one linen closet for the entire home. In this house, we have linen closets in all three full bathrooms, plus a large linen closet in the upstairs hallways. Plus, all the bathrooms have plenty of drawers in the vanities. I have no idea how we'll fill this space up, but when you're planning to live somewhere for the rest of your life, it's better to plan for more space than too little.

In the linen closet in this bathroom, we attached a simple full-length mirror on the inside. We used command strips to hold it up. (We did the same thing in our mudroom closet). 

We opted for a full mirror in here to take advantage of the long vanity and to make the room look bigger. We bought the light fixture at Menards.

We bought the clock from Target. 

I ordered the custom "You are loved" vinyl from Uppercase Living before our house was even done. I knew I wanted D to see this daily reminder, no matter what else he saw in the mirror. 

I picked up the yellow flowers at a yard sale when we were staging our old house. D liked them so much, I put them in his bathroom. Of course, being a Dutch family, they should be tulips, but I love daisies, so they'll do. (Now that I look at it though, I think I might paint the container blue). I bought the red airplane at Hobby Lobby for his vintage transportation themed room, but it keeps ending up here. 

I made this dry erase board with cute transportation letters using a red frame I found at a thrift store for $1.50. You can read how I did it here. 

I also made the art on the main wall, based on a photo I saw on Pinterest. I dusted off my PowerPoint skills and made my own. 

Even though we knew we were "one and done," we thought it would be a good idea to put a door between the vanity area and bathroom for when guests stay. We were already thinking that we wanted to host at least one exchange student, and especially for a girl, it made sense to provide the extra privacy.

Originally, I hung a fabric shower curtain, but our little mess maker keep soaking it during bathtime. It's now in his room as part of his book nook. We bought this one at Meijer (not shown online).

Because D still spends quality time in the bathroom each day, we made this little book shelf for him.

Since the dual flush toilet is new to some of our guest, I labeled them for appropriate use. Sweet D says, "1 is for pee-pees. 2 is for poopies. 3 is for tootsies. 4 is for books." Now you know.

And because I live with boys, I needed to add  a little reminder:

Lastly, we made a row of preschooler sized robe hooks on the towel bar since D doesn't use regular towels yet.

I hope you enjoyed the tour!

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