Made at theCO: Magnetic Calendar

For a few years now, we’ve been using three magnetic boards in theCO’s hallway to display photos of our members and more information about what each of them has to offer our community. While we love sharing about our folks, we decided it was time for a hallway makeover so that we can better keep CO:members and visitors in the loop about upcoming events. After seeing the finished piece, we realized this would be the perfect project for anyone to put in their own homes or offices to plan their schedules in a fun and reusable way. Here’s how we did it and how you can use theCO’s tools to do the same:

Materials & Equipment:

- Sheet metal (we used three 2’x3’ sheets)
- Sharpie
- Yardstick or T-square
- Spray paint (optional)
- 1/8” birch plywood
- Laser cutter/etcher
- Adhesive magnets
- Additional magnets
- Card stock and color printer
- Laminator (optional)
- Dry erase markers (optional)

We started off this project by gridding out our calendar. It’s important to include a full six rows of seven spaces to account for long months that begin later in the week, so make sure to do the math before using your yardstick and Sharpie to mark your surface permanently; 3" x 4.5" spaces worked best for the size of our calendar. You’ll also want to include a thin row to write in the days of the week at the top.

Now, what’s a calendar without dates? We wanted to make sure that our calendars could be interchangeable between months, so magnets seemed like the best option, and our handy laser cutter and etcher made cutting thin pieces of wood incredibly easy. We chose a triangle-shaped date tile to best fit into the space, and to add some color, we spray painted the wood so that the dates stood out once etched. We then added adhesive magnets to the back of the laser cut pieces and simply put them in their respective spaces. Additionally, we laser cut month titles to put at the top of the calendar.

Now that we had the calendar basics, it was time to add events! Between laser cutting long strips of wood for CO.STARTERS dates, printing out and laminating graphics for various special events, and including Polaroids for CO:members’ birthdays, we’ve got quite the visual guide to what’s going on at theCO this summer. Perhaps for a personal calendar you could add sticky notes with reminders or use a dry erase marker on an erasable surface. Just make sure all your methods work well for interchanging dates so that next month you can simply clear it off and start over.

Head over to theCO sometime soon to get a glance at this project for yourself and to make sure you know what’s coming up in the next few weeks. We’d love to see you!