DIY 2018 Plywood Calendar & Blog Goals

Welcome to 2018 at Dossier Blog! I’m looking forward to another great year of blogging and growing!

Before we get into the DIY plywood calendar I thought I’d quickly share a few goals I have for 2018… despite not really being into resolutions I’ll admit, I do have a few objectives I wouldn’t mind reaching this year. They’re not necessarily 2018 specific, but are more just the next steps I see for growing Dossier. So in no order, they are:

-Grow my readership: Having lots of hits on a blog is one thing, but having a community of returning readers is another! I’d love to continue to grow a readership base over just getting hits.

-Post more frequently: The posts here have always been a bit infrequent and this probably affects my readership too. So I’m aiming to post more consistently, hopefully once a week. This will take a lot more planning, but I’ve already got my first few posts lined up! I just have to make sure I don’t post them all at once out of sheer excitement, haha.

-Monetise: This is a scary one to write but I’m working towards turning my blog into a business. While I’m not completely certain of what this will look like, my reasoning is that I’d just love to end up blogging full time! And a blog that makes money is one way to do that. It means I’m already starting to look differently at how I do things, but there won’t be any drastic changes.

So there’s a few things I’m aiming toward this year. I know that to achieve these things I’ll have to have a pretty good plan broken down into small steps. If you’re interested in how I’m going to achieve these things, I’ll follow the advice here about reaching your goals.

Anyway, to kick off the new year I thought I’d share this easy DIY 2018 plywood calendar I made – I’m all for adding some wooden elements to the home. Plywood is inexpensive and easy to find in thin, smaller sizes which makes it a perfect fit for this calendar. To get an actual calendar, you can either cut up a cheap calendar or use a printable calendar. There’s lots of free printable calendars going round on Pinterest, or you can make your own here.

DIY 2018 Plywood Calendar

You will need:

-Thin plywood
-chalk paint
-printable or loose calendar
-sticky tape, clip, scissors, chalk pen and glue.

Start with a piece of plywood around twice the size of a regular piece of paper. Mine was 45cm x 32cm. Figure out where you’d like to place your calendar sheets – I put mine right in the middle. For the heading and the notes section, use tape to mark out a rectangle that will give you a nice clean edge.

Paint inside the rectangle 2-3 coats of the chalkboard paint (or follow the directions on your paint). Once its dry, you can peel off the tape. Use a chalk pen to add in any details you like: I went with the year, month (that can be rubbed off and changed) and a notes section down the bottom.

If you’d like to add in a ‘today’s date’ section, cut multiple squares of balsa wood to size and paint on the numbers 0-9, plus an extra 1 and 2. I used tape to stick them on top of the plywood, but you could also glue a thin piece of balsa onto the ply that they can sit on, like a shelf.

Use superglue or hot glue to stick the clip onto the ply. Once its dry, you can add your calendar pages in the middle.

You can either hang the calendar on the wall or I prefer it leaning against the wall at my desk. It has more of a casual vibe but its also in direct line of my eyesight. Has anyone else noticed this trend to sit pictures on shelves and cabinets rather than hanging them? I’m a bit of a fan, especially as I can be indecisive, so it allows me to more them around without having to put holes in the wall!