My sister Rebecca does cool stuff. Like the time she and her husband set out to lay a wood floor in their living room, they decided on a herringbone pattern instead of, you know, plain old boring straight lines.

All over her house are these great little details that make their home unique and eclectic and theirs. Like the giant grapevine monogram from their wedding that hangs in the dining room, or the blue, faux stained glass doors that open into her office. She does things because they feel right, and because they make sense to her, not because she’s seen it done on Pinterest or because she plans to blog about it later. Her home goes un-photographed, un-pinned, un-blogged. Because none of that is what makes her happy.

BUT … but she has a sister who happens to love blogging andphotographing and pinning. Those things make her sister very happy. And so when I see projects like these, from time to time, it just feels like the world needs to know the coolness that goes on behind closed doors at my big sister’s house.

Just last fall I was in her daughter Beatrice’s room rounding up my own kiddos to go home (they live just a few miles away). I noticed a paper chain hung around the circumference of the room at the ceiling and asked her what it was.

“It’s a calendar!”

I looked closer. Sure enough, here and there I saw chain links marked for holidays or birthdays or school breaks. It wrapped all the way around the room so Beatrice could lay in bed and see the whole year at a glance. Not only was she getting an awesome grasp of time and calendars, but she could see for herself whose birthday was coming next, how long until Christmas, or how the seasons relate to one another.

Pretty darn cool.

And you can bet I wanted one of these for myself! Even beyond a bedroom, it would be awesome in a playroom or a homeschool classroom – or even an actual school classroom!

I wanted to make one for our house, but I wanted it to be more permanent. Why not plan to make our way around that calendar year after year after year?!! Paper was great, but I wondered if felt might last a little longer. I probably could have cut out 365 colored felt circles and stitched them together, but the Land of Nod has such awesome, brilliant colors in their wool felt garland already, I sat right down and got to work assigning colors to months for our playroom!

Once I had all of my months measured out and cut, it was just as simple as stitching them together in order, leaving a 1/2"-1" stitch chain in between.

I didn't bother matching the colors (I just used white thread), but now that it's hanging up, I haven't even noticed.

If your room is a perfect square, you can just plan out three months per wall. Our playroom is much longer than it is wide, so I just sort of winged it, making sure to hang it high above doors and low where it felt happy. I'm sure 3M makes some kind of awesome removable hanging strips that would work perfectly here, but I just used clear push pins and really, no one is the wiser. (These white thumb tacks would work, too!)

To mark holidays that are the same every year, I cut apart a string of Starry Garland and pinned a star over circles to mark them as special.

And to mark the birthdays, I ordered a set of Dot Dot Decor circle ornaments and embroidered everyone's names on them. (I'm going to assume that not everyone has an embroidery machine at their disposal, so instead you could do something fun like letting each person decorate their own birthday with puffy paint or an appliqué with their initial or name – kind of a cool opportunity for a creative activity!)

I know y'all have been seeing a lot of our playroom lately, so I'll spare you a full tour. BUT, here is one little area you haven't seen yet! That laminated map was only about $15 and it has been such a fun tool for talking with our kids about the world! (We have even been known to employ a Nerf dart gun as a tool for geography lessons – those suckers stick great with a direct shot!)

The Naptime Diaries print ("Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances…") is a great and appropriate bit of scripture to have posted in a playroom (or any room where people interact with people!).

And that is our happy bit of beautiful, educational, festive decor that could no longer go un-shared with the world! Please thank my sister for her brilliance, and only thank me for my excessive use of yellow squiggly arrows 🙂

other pretty things you may have seen in this post:

 yarn-wrapped letters / grey pouf / pallina game / birdies canvas print / blue magazine storage 

silver locker bins / toy zebra / yellow throw pillow / kneatly knit storage / "Beware of Ninjas" print 

Eames rocker / toy storage boxes in built-ins / dotty monkey 

xoxo, Raechel

Raechel Myers blogs at Finding My Feet. When she's not elbow deep in her next DIY project, you'll likely find her helping her 6-year-old with his Kindergarten homework or playing babies with her 3-year-old daughter. She lives with her husband in Franklin, TN where they can only hope to train their kiddos to love the Lord and take their dishes to the kitchen sink.