Quilling Calendar

Quilling Calendar

Today’s post is about a project you may or may not be aware of. In 2006, I was approached by Accord Calendar Company to coordinate a quilling-pattern-a-day calendar for the year 2007. Accord specializes in novelty calendars; they are actually more like kits than calendars. They make an origami calendar, an airplane calendar, a scrapbooking calendar, a watercolor calendar, a watercolor calendar and many more. The calendars come in patented gift boxes which open to form an easel stand. While the pages are dated, there is no room to jot down appointments or reminders. Instead each page has a picture of a small quilled item at the top of the page. The items are generally themed with the time of the year, for example: if you are looking for Halloween ideas just flip through until you get to the month of October. The bottom of the page is die cut into 18 six inch long quilling strips in the appropriate colors to complete the piece shown at the top of the page. The directions for making the piece are on the back of the picture. I had trouble visualizing this too, until I saw an mock up of the real thing. It is such a clever idea! The box includes a small slotted tool, a quilling shape key, and general instructions. Wow! Was I impressed!

The really neat thing about this project was the fact that quilling was finally being sold and seen someplace other than craft stores, (not that you see very much of it there either.) The calendars were sold in book stores, kiosks, craft stores, mail order, and by quilling suppliers; we sold more than 150 right here at Whimsiquills. We received terrific feedback from our customers. Teachers and scout leaders bought them as a teaching aid. Quillers bought them because they just wanted the 313 design patterns. Where can you get 313 designs for only $13.99? Why only 313 designs you ask? Well in order to be able to fit all of the pages in this neat little gift box, Saturdays and Sundays were combined on one page. Oh and where did the designs come from? From quillers of course! Each design had the creators name and web site (if there was one) printed on the page. North American Quilling Guild members created the designs for the first two calendars, (2007 and 2008). It was a challenge, because the quillers had to come up with designs that were approximately 2”x2” and didn’t use more than 108” of paper. You can’t even imagine the things they came up with! Since I was coordinating the project, all of the pieces came to me. What fun! It was like Christmas every day! I couldn’t wait for the mail to come to see what delightful surprises were in store.

Well, the 2008 calendar is finished and will soon be in stores, we are anxiously awaiting our shipment, but while we are waiting we are busy working on the 2009 calendar. (Talk about confusing, you can’t imagine what it is like working on a 2009 project in 2007! I have to double check every check I write because I keep writing 2009! . . . Talk about postdating a check!) One of the reasons I am doing this blog is to reach quillers who might not have known about this project and invite them to participate. If you are interested, contact me a Whimsiquills@cox.net or if you are in the USA or Canada you can call toll free 1 877 488 0894; if you are outside of the USA or Canada, our phone number is 1860 749 0894 and the fax is 860 763 3904. If you are interested in receiving the info packet via email or snail mail just let us know. We still have lots of days open for the 2009 calendar and would love to have you submit a design. We have a list of themes we are looking for and all of the general directions which we will be glad to send you. I’d like to get all of the submissions by the end of September.