Calendar Girls

Oh, come on! Get your head out of the gutter. Even though the title suggests otherwise, there's really nothing risque in this post. :-P Today, we are all about cute. Matryoshka Doll-Cute, that is.

I'm sure by now you would have seen the LD Matryoshka Doll SVG set. I *heart* this set! There's something about these dolls that make me go "Awwwww....soooo cute." Then again, as much as I love it, I have to say that I was a little mad when I first saw the SVG set. It was Black Friday 2009 and I was up early so that I could be at Michaels' when they opened just so I can get my hands on the Paisley cartridge. All because it was then a newly released cart that had the only FOUR Matryoshka doll cuts in the whole Cricut Cartridge library. I spent $29.99 plus 9.8% tax on it and thought I was so lucky to get that cartridge. 

Now I just think that I was stupid. :-(

The LD Matryoshka Dolls contains 12 different styles of dolls including both boy dolls and girl dolls. TWELVE dolls! And it even comes with a super cute house-shaped envelope and a doll-shaped accordian card. All for 6 bucks (or just $4.20 if you use the 30% off $15 coupon above). Grrrr....

Anyway, the first style that I chose to cut was doll no. 3. One of the best things about svg files and Make-the-Cut is that you can easily reconfigure the layers if you like. I wasn't comfortable with the original layers of this doll and so I did some rearranging to get this:

Of course, once I started I couldn't stop and I ended up with a bunch of dolls. Look! Don't they look preeetttty? :-)

Sure, I could make cards out of them but why make cards when you can make...

..calendars! I bought a pack of mini calendars from the local stamp store but you can easily find mini calendars downloads on the internet. Just Bing it!

To get the cuts for the two bases, I made a shadow layer of the doll and welded it to a rectangle the size of the calendar. Then, I made a shadow layer of that. Super quick and easy!

To embellish, I used my Diamond Stickles to add some glitter and a i-rock hot-fix rhinestone for some bling. I attached an eyelet from which I strung a piece of baker's twine with 3 jingle bells. I also affixed a strip of adhesive-backed magnet to the back of the calendar in case the recipient of this mini hanging calendar decides that she doesn't want to hang it after all. She can still stick it to a magnetic surface.

After all, whether it is hanging or stuck on, everyone can use a mini Matryoshka Doll calendar, right?