Hi Pebbles Friends!  It’s Wendy Sue here today, sharing a fun (and super easy) idea for organizing birthday cards for the coming year.  I guess I’m still a little caught up in the whole “fresh start,” “clean,” and  “organize everything” bug that seems to come around every year about this time. 😉  Seriously though, I’m really excited about this little project – it’s going to help me plan ahead and organize birthday cards for the entire year ahead!

It’s always more fun to work on organization projects with a friend, so today, we’re going to make one of these fun projects together!  Run and grab your Silhouette and purchase this cut file (here) – it’s called “a2 vertical card & envelope organizer”.  I cut mine out of kraft cardstock.  I cut the other pieces to cover the box from one of my favorite papers in the “Home+Made” collection.

After you’ve cut your pieces, fold along the scored lines.  Use a strong adhesive to build the box!

See how easy that was?!?  Now that the box is assembled, let’s make the monthly dividers.  I started by cutting the circles from kraft cardstock (the circles are part of the cut file).

And then I cut 12 of the divider pages.  There are three different tab top styles in the cut file – I cut four of each since I needed 12. I used some of the papers from the “Home+Made” 6×6 pad, and a few of them I cut from the full-size papers in the same collection.

Next, we need to choose thickers to add the letters for each of the months.  I opted for these pretty gold ones:

Now simply glue the circles onto the tabs of the dividers:

This is coming together quickly, isn’t it?  Now we need a way to add a list of birthdays to the front of each divider.  At first I was just going to print out a list and glue it to the front…but then I decided that I just had to use these sweet pocket tags!

I enlisted the help of my nieces and nephews and had them write their names under their birthday month – including the day.  Sure, I could have done this myself, but it just happened that we were getting together for a family party and I thought it would be fun to have them include their handwriting in my little project.  A few of them got extra helpful and filled out more than their own…but that’s okay! 😉

These little lists tuck right into the pockets.  They will also be easy to update in the future:

The last step is to attach the tags to the dividers – super easy!!

At this point, I thought I was finished, but then I noticed this cute “happy birthday” tag on one of the patterned papers in the “happy day” collection, and I just HAD to add it to the front of the box!

And that’s it!  Thanks for creating along with me!  Now when I feel like sitting down to make a card, I will know exactly which birthday is coming up and who needs a card!  Of course, you could add other yearly events, like anniversaries, to your list.  And I think I might add an extra tab at the back to store “thank you” cards and all-occasion cards as well.  I love having this one little part of my life all organized for the year and I hope you do too!

Supplies:
Home+Made 6×6 Paper Pad
Home+Made Gold Thickers
Home+Made Mini Kraft Pocket Tags
Home+Made Pine Patterned Paper
Home+Made 12×12 Paper Pad
Happy Day Thinking of You Patterned Paper