Calendar Update

UPDATE ON THE CALENDAR PROJECT:

Fernymoss and I spent a good deal of time Saturday night putting together rough drafts of each month of 2009 ... we have most of the photos chosen at this point, though there will still be a few that we'll have to take between now and November, when we hope to have this finished. Fernymoss has been combing various resources for fun factoids to include, as well as the Moon Phases and Planting Signs, so there should be plenty of tidbits still to include. So far, we're liking how it's looking, though we may eventually have to modify our original format for the final product depending on how we choose to have these reproduced.

We're currently considering two basic options: 1) either we just print them out on nice paper with our HP photo printer or 2) we do the basic mockup and have it printed commercially. Of course, the unit price is a concern, so we want to investigate our options to see which will allow us to produce these at the most reasonable price. I've researched online options for printing these commercially with several companies, and honestly, for the 50 or so copies we want to do, the price is a bit daunting (around $12 per unit seems to be the going rate). But before we make a final decision, we are planning on getting some bids locally for what we want, and then compare that to what it would cost to just make them all ourselves (thus, a truly home made product ... which also has its charms!).

So ... as we sort all that out over the next couple months, I'll just give you a teaser of what one month currently looks like in what we got accomplished over the weekend. As always, please feel free to add your comments or suggestions on how we could improve the basic layout. I can say that there will be more photos than just the 12 months, as we plan to include a few other pages about our garden and some other information (references to good books, references and the like). The nice thing is that with all the footwork we're doing now, we should be able to produce a yearly edition with minimal effort once we get all the kinks worked out. SmartDraw is turning out to be really worth the money it cost to get going ... because we were able to spend a few hours and bang out most of the calendar by plugging in the inital data we want to include. There will be more as this progresses, but here's an example to give you an initial view.

And again, I'm completely open to suggestions for favorite photos or subjects readers would like to see included, and don't worry, Gail, Kopper King will make an appearance somewhere, and right now I'm thinking it might be on the front cover.... Oh, and yes, the dogs will appear somewhere as well ... perhaps on an inner page or even one of the months ... we're not sure yet about the final choices so that's still subject to change. Anyway, enjoy this small preview and let me know about other possible subjects!

IVG