Of Handbags and Calendars

My new Cath Kidston bag I got for Christmas.  This is the first bag I've had for years that I have not made myself.  Kind of fun to have one someone else made:)

This heavy duck cloth is coated with a heavy layer of lamination.  How I would love to get my hands on some of this type of fabric.  If you know of a source PLEASE let me know.

I love the laminated fabric I have but it is all soft and won't stand on it's own like this does.  And while that is wonderful for a lot of things and very fun to use I'd like to find this too.

A seamstress can never have too many fabric options:)

My 2012 calendar.  By Greg Johnson and Jean Lowe.  I've used this calendar before in 2009 and 2010.  Then when I was searching for one for 2011 there were none to be found:(  I was so sad and I searched and searched.  Finally discovered that they had issues with their printer and it wasn't going to happen for 2011.  But they promised they were working on one for 2012.  So I used a different book calendar.  It was not pretty and I very much disliked it all year long.  And I was always misplacing it!  This one is so pretty it can lay on your table and not look like you need to be tidying up!

About September or October every year I start needing a calendar for the next year.  It's where I keep track of stuff so I don't have to keep papers with schedules and appointments laying around.  So last fall I started looking for this calendar.  Couldn't find it.   Nothing was out there about these calendars.  Nothing.  So I sadly ordered another one that was at least cute but it was way smaller than this one.

Then around the end of November I got an email from a friend with a link to Curious Sofa's listing of this very calendar!  You better believe I had one (actually 2! my sis got one for Christmas) in my cart and was checking out so fast you couldn't see my fingers they were flying so fast on the keyboard!

I am so happy to have my favorite calendar again this year.  And I sincerely hope they don't have publishing issues again.  My life runs so much more smoothly with this thing:)

What do you use for a calendar?  Book?  Wall?  Computer?  Is it pretty AND functional or do you go for the just functional?  And would you like to try one of these?  I'm thinking it would be a great giveaway for my blog to do for Christmas this year!  If I remember I will order an extra for 2013 when the time arrives and do just that:)