The first DIY of 2021 for you today and it is one with a bit of woodworking skill involved. See how to make a DIY wooden calendar to keep track of the days in this post.

So, it is the new year and the first blog post /DIY of 2021 today. This is a week later than I had planned, but sometimes projects just take that extra bit of time to complete, don’t they? In today’s post and project, I am learning a new skill of woodworking, and showing you how you can make your own DIY wooden calendar. This mixes a bit of woodwork as well as using adhesive vinyl with an electronic cutting machine (however this is optional).

The best bit about this DIY wooden calendar is that it is a perpetual calendar. This means that it is valid for many years as the days, dates and months are interchangeable. So it will last for more than this year! All you need to do is change the days, dates and months. What’s more, part of the calendar is a chalkboard, so you can leave messages of important dates or even some inspirational quotes.

So, if you would like to see how to make a DIY wooden calendar, then let’s get crafting.
Jump to the video at the end of this post too!

DIY Wooden Calendar

To make the calendar I teamed up with my dad, who is a dab hand at woodwork. Now, he has a plethora of machinery to aid in making this project, however simple cutting tools can be used to make it as well. It may just take a little longer with a bit more elbow grease.

To finish the calendar I am using my new Silhouette Cameo 4 to cut out the vinyl decals for the days, dates and numbers. Again this step can be adapted with the above being drawn/painted on rather than with Vinyl. You can see how to do this in my festive DIY Advent Calendar sign.

You will need the following items to make the DIY wooden calendar:
Some items on this list are affiliate links and will be marked with an asterisk (*). This means that I may earn a small amount of commission should you make a purchase through the link, at no extra cost to you.

• 5mm thick plywood
• 25mm thick pine wood
• Wood glue*
• C-Hooks*
• Sandpaper
• Undercoat/Primer*
• Chalkboard paint*
• Antique white Chalk paint
• Acrylic paint*
• Adhesive Vinyl*

Step 1 – Cut the wood to size

As this DIY wooden calendar is, well, wooden, the wood needs to be cut down into size. You can use a hand saw, circular saw or a table saw to do so.

For the main part of the calendar, you need to cut a piece of the 5mm plywood measuring at 28cm X 20.8cm. Then cut more of the plywood into 16 smaller pieces measuring at 10cm X 4.7cm. These will make up the plaques for the days, dates and months.

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To house the plaques for hanging, a little box compartment on the back is needed. So, in the plywood cut x1 piece at 16.5cm X 3.5cm for the bottom. x1 piece at 16.5cm X 6cm for the front and x4 pieces at 4cm X 6cm for the sides and dividing pieces of the compartment.

For the base of the calendar you want to cut a stronger piece of wood, I used 25mm thick pine. Cut this down to 29.5cm X 5cm. This should give you a thin rectangular piece.

Using some sandpaper, sand down each piece, especially the edges to smooth the wood and reduce the chance of splinters.

Step 2 – Construct the Calendar Base

Once all the pieces are prepped it is time to form the calendar base. Firstly, a little groove needs to be made along the centre of the pine wooden piece. This needs to be just wide enough so that the calendar piece can fit snugly in it.

You could use a router to make this groove or a simple chisel. We decided to use a machine called bench mortiser. These are basically an electronic type of chisel that uses a drill bit type attachment to cut square pieces into the wood. We used this to create a square groove all the way along the middle of the pine piece of wood, leaving approximately 0.5cm gap at each end of the wood.
Smooth this out with some sandpaper, to make the groove smoother on the inside for the calendar piece to fit. Set this aside for now and move onto glueing the compartment pieces together.

Use the wood glue to adhere the bottom piece and the front piece together. Hold this in place and use nails to also hold it in place with the glue. We used an air compressed nail gun to do so.
Repeat the process with the dividing pieces of the compartment, as well as the sides.

Then apply wood glue and adhere the compartment to the back of the main calendar piece. Again, use nails and clamps as required.

Next, place wood glue in the groove made, and slot the calendar piece into this. Again use a few nails from the underneath to help secure in place. Place on a few clamps to keep in place.

Step 3 – Add extra support (if needed)

Once the glue has dried/hardened, it is time to remove the clamps. You may find that the structure of the calendar is a little wobbly, and therefore an extra brace piece may need to be added. Add this underneath the compartment, attaching to the back of the calendar piece and the bottom stand. Use wood glue and nails once again to secure in place, clamp if needed and allow to dry.

Step 4 – Add in Hooks

Now it is all stuck together, it is time to add in some C-hooks to hang the pieces of the calendar. Measure out where you want the hooks to be for the pieces to hang. To measure, you need to take the length of the calendar pieces and divide this by 4. This should split the board into 4 equal parts. Then place on the individual hanging piece, measuring an equal difference between them all and the edge of the calendar. If that makes sense?! Mark where the hooks will go, as well as marking the pieces where the holes will be drilled.

As I said before my dad is fab at woodwork, so he drafted up something called a jig that the individual hanging pieces could fit into to accurately drill the two holes needed at the top. All that is now needed to be done was drill one side, flip the piece and drill the opposite side using the bench drill press. You can just use a normal drill for this, making sure you get the correct size drill bit to make the hole big enough to go over the hooks.

Sand any rough parts where the holes have been drilled.

Step 5 – Paint the calendar

Once everything is nicely stuck together, then it is time to decorate the DIY wooden calendar. Start by making sure all of the calendar pieces are smooth and ready for painting by sanding. If you have screwed in the hooks, then either remove them or tape them up as I did.

Then use a primer/undercoat to prep the wood for the chalkboard paint. Ideally, you want two coats of the undercoat. Follow the instruction on your chosen undercoat. I covered all of the pieces of the wooden calendar in the undercoat, including the back compartment piece and base.

When the undercoat is dry, it is time to use the chalkboard paint. Paint the front of the calendar. Again, following the instructions on the tin. I gave it two coats in total and the coverage from the tin I used was fab! Allow the last coat to dry before painting other areas.

Then, use acrylic paint to paint the base a different colour. I opted to mix a few colours to give the base a metallic copper look to it. Again, give this a few coats to make sure it is covered evenly.

For the individual hanging pieces, paint the colour of your liking. I opted for an antique white chalk paint to cover both sides. Finishing the pieces off with the same acrylic as the base around the edges. You can see this paint here in my decoupage upstyle.

Step 6 – Create Vinyl Designs

Now that the DIY wooden calendar has been painted, it is time to create the vinyl decals for each hanging piece. For this, I am using my new Silhouette Cameo 4 to do so. If you have a Cricut, then this could be used also; or as said previously you could hand paint these onto the pieces.

These decals are really easy to do. Open up the design software and set the project to the size of the mat – mine was 12×12 as this is the size sheets of adhesive vinyl I have.

Use the text feature to create the days, months and date numbers for the board. You will need two number 1’s and two number 2’s for the calendar.
Choose whichever font you fancy for this design, I used a few free fonts from Font Bundles. Now, to make it easier to weed the vinyl, you want thicker font. I did a mixture of thicker font and more calligraphy type font.

Colour the dates one colour, the days another colour and the months a different colour. This will make it easier if you wish to use different colour vinyl. Then send to cut and await the vinyl magic to begin.

Step 7 – Weed Vinyl and Adhere

Weed out all the relevant pieces of vinyl, leaving the text behind on the backing paper. Use transfer tape and place this over the vinyl text, pressing down to secure the tape to it. Once happy, place this onto the individual hanging pieces. For the months I placed one on each side, starting with January and February and so forth. Repeat this with the days of the week parts, so one hanging piece has Monday and Tuesday on it.

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For the numbers, these have to be placed so that you can have the number 11 and 22 displayed so place the numbers as so. 0 and 1 on one piece, 1 and 2 on another piece and 2 and 3 on another piece. For the remaining pieces continue with the numbers in order, so; 4 and 5, 6 and 7 and finally 8 and 9.

Make sure that each piece is pressed onto the wooden piece well so that it has fully adhered.

Then it is time to hang the relevant pieces to the date and place all remaining hanging pieces into the storage compartment. Not forgetting to use call pens to add on a positive quote, affirmation or memorable date!

There you have how to make a DIY wooden calendar, perfect for keeping track of the days.

What do you think of this DIY? Will you be making your own DIY wooden calendar for your desk? Would you like a more indepth tutorial on using the Silhouette Design studio? Let me know in the comments below!

DIY Wooden Calendar Video:

Here is the video version of this post, which gives you full glimpse into how to make your own DIY wooden calendar. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to my channel if you have enjoyed!

DIY Wooden Calendar – Pin It!

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