this little life of mine

I'm not sure if this counts as a Thingadailies entry becauase, although I personally took all the photographs in this calendar (and enhanced the following pictures of each month's picture using the Urbane filter from Picmonkey), the calendar itself was made by Shutterfly. Still, I'm posting it and you can decide for yourselves if it counts as a "thing" or not!

This personalized 8 X 11 calendar usually retails for $24.99 on Shutterfly, but I received a coupon from Vons for a free calendar, so I only paid $7.95 (or something like that) for shipping and handling. Since I didn't have a calendar for 2016 yet, and I didn't have time to actually make one because it was well past January 1st, I decided to try this out. It was super easy and they have lots of different themes and background designs to choose from. You can even make a collage with multiple photos, and add text to it. I decided to use the "Art Gallery" theme, which was just a plain white background, and use the full photo option to showcase my photographs rather than adding anything to them.

I chose "Garden Zen" for the theme of my 2016 calendar, and used photos of various garden statuary from my own backyard as well as some public gardens around the area, and some flowers from my garden. I think it turned out great, and I enjoy looking at it! I hope you enjoy it as well!

My cover shot is a stacked stone sculpture in my back yard.

January featured one of my gnomes, also in my back yard.

February has the shot I call "Diana Flowers". It's a picture of a flowering tree in SLO enhanced with the Diana filter from a photo app on my phone.

March is a shot of the Alice in Wonderland statue and display in the garden behind Heart's Ease in Cambria, CA.

This little daffodil used to bloom in my back yard, but hasn't come up for a couple years. Thankfully I took a great picture of it and will be able to enjoy looking at it in April.

This serene dragon is also in Heart's Ease in Cambria, and will be featured in May.

For June I chose this Buddha statue which was for sale at The Garden Gallery in Morro Bay, CA.

July features a gorgeous bloom from my Midas Touch rosebush.

August features another Buddha, this time from the back garden of a little bookstore and wedding chapel in Morro Bay, CA.

For September (the month of the Central Coast Writer's Conference and also National Banned Books Week), I chose this adorable little fairy reading a book. I believe it was also in the bookstore garden.

October features some of the metal garden art I have in my back yard. The "Garden" and little birds I got at Hand's Gallery here in SLO, and the tall "tree" with the birdfeeder and thermometer I picked up on sale at OSH.

For November I picked this cool head planter I found at The Garden Gallery in Morro Bay. (Now that I look at him, I think I should've used him for December because he could easily pass for a Santa!)

And finally I'm ending the year on a serene note with another Buddha also from the bookstore garden in Morro Bay.

So, have you picked out your 2016 calendar yet? What kind of calendar do you like - beaches, puppies, inspirational quotes, firehouse hunks? Let me know in the comments! Cheers!