How to create a custom personalized calendar

Compared to other holiday and new year happenings, putting up a brand new wall calendar doesn’t come with a lot of celebration. Nonetheless, it is a valuable tradition. Physical calendars offer a tangible kind of satisfaction missing from digital alternatives. Plus, they offer the delight of a new visual display for each month of the year.

Both major benefits of the physical calendar tradition – the organizational and the aesthetic – are boosted when you create your own custom photo calendar. Whether you make it for yourself or as a gift, this special project promises 365 days of rewards! With Mixbook’s many high-quality, fully customizable themes, it’s also easy and fun to create your own unique photo calendar for 2025.

Steps to creating your custom calendar

The Mixbook Studio’s easy-to-use tools, paired with a theme, mean it’s possible to create a beautiful custom calendar in under an hour. There’s no rush, of course! Navigate to Mixbook’s calendar page and click “create your photo calendar.” Then, follow these straightforward steps:

1. Choose “start a blank calendar” or select a theme.
2. Upload your photos. Then, drag and drop them from the left panel into the blank frames for each month.
3. Customize the calendar using the text, background, stickers, and other tools in the left panel.
4. Preview your calendar and make any additional changes before clicking “Order.”.

Customization options

The panel on the left side of the Mixbook Studio offers various tools for customizing your photo calendar, making it easy to create something totally unique. Some of the elements of a calendar you can customize are:

• Size and format (square or landscape)
• Starting month
• Layouts: Browse suggested layouts for one to eight-plus photos.
• Photo frames: You can resize, move, and delete the frames included with any theme.
• Text: Add captions, phrases, quotes, reminders, and more, anywhere on your calendar. Customize the text’s font, color, alignment, and text box borders and fill.
• Backgrounds: Browse alternative background designs or select a solid color, and adjust the transparency.
• Stickers: Find fun accents to decorate both the calendar art and date boxes. You can resize, move, and change the colors of the stickers, too.

Reasons to create a custom calendar

You might have your entire schedule organized on your phone, with handy reminders and alarms set up to all but guarantee you never miss a meeting, appointment, or birthday. These tech-based tools are amazing, but they will never entirely replace paper and pens.

A physical calendar always offers a straightforward, offline, visually appealing way to stay organized. Here are some of the other top reasons to create a custom physical calendar in 2025:

• Add joy to your day: Even the most mundane calendar tasks are brightened by a glance at a favorite photo, such as your goofy dog, grinning niece, or the most spectacular sunset scene from last year’s vacation.
• Display fabulous photos: A custom photo calendar is a great way to display all those photos that aren’t necessarily “frame-worthy” but deserve at least a temporary spot on your wall.
• Stay organized: Print all important-to-you dates on your calendar during the design process, so there’s no need to fill them in (or forget to do so) later. Plus, everyone in the household can share the same centrally located calendar.
• Thoughtful gifts: Custom photo calendars are a fantastic gift idea. You can make matching calendars for every member of your extended family, and include birthdays and other events that are helpful for all.
• An annual tradition: Even better, gifting calendars is an easily repeated annual tradition. Appoint yourself the role as family calendar-maker and you won’t need to come up with new gift ideas each year. (Tip: Each calendar will auto-save to your Mixbook account along with your personal listings for events and holidays, so you can use them year after year.)
• Promote your business: Custom calendars make excellent promotional items for business owners. Company calendars can highlight your business’s projects, employees, history, and achievements.

Take inspiration from calendar themes

Mixbook’s calendar themes make it extremely easy to create a stunning custom calendar. While there is always an option to start with a blank canvas, choosing one of the many themes is an easier and more inspiring approach. Browse the themes, which you can filter by color and style, and you’re sure to find one that suits your preferences perfectly.

Some of the calendar themes offer a distinct, stylish aesthetic paired with a super-versatile design. These are equally ideal for showcasing family photos, vacation pics, baby or wedding photography, or just a hodge-podge of favorites. Examples range from chic and minimalist, such as the Minimal Gallery Wall Calendar, to the exuberant Colorful Calendar by EttaVee.

Other calendar themes offer a more specific design idea, such as the World’s Best Grandparents Calendar by Hallmark, Full Photo Travel Calendar, or Contemporary Dog Calendar by PetSmart. Simply fill the photo spots with the best images of grandkids, vacations, or beloved pets as suggested.

Year-in-review calendar themes are always a popular choice. Reflect on photos from the previous year as you experience the new one. Browse your photos by season or month, and match them to the new calendar e.g. wedding photos for your anniversary month, and highlights of your annual summer camping trip for July. Year-in-review themes are available in many different styles, including abstract, rustic, and 12 Months of Love.

Photo ideas for your custom calendar

Family photos are always a top choice for custom calendars. After all, there are few sweeter images to admire than the smiling faces of your loved ones, and the happiest of shared memories captured on camera. Travel photo calendars are popular too, as vacations are primetime for spectacular photography and special moments.

But, there are no limitations when you’re making your own custom calendar. Consider these original and creative calendar ideas from Mixbookers:

• Celebrate your hobbies and skills: Showcase your camera skills with the Professional Photography theme, or prize-winning roses with the From My Garden Gallery calendar theme. Create a photo calendar featuring your handknits, oil paintings, Lego builds, pie recipes, quilts, athletic achievements, book club, or any other favorite pursuits.

• Pet calendar: Every pet lover almost certainly has at least a dozen amazing photos to adorn a calendar.

• Spiritual calendar: Bring your spiritual practice into your daily planning tasks by incorporating its themes into a calendar. The Biblical Verses theme can help, or you can customize any of the other themes.

• Kids’ art calendar: Use the Kids Art Calendar by Crayola to show off pictures of your children’s most artistic creations.

Social media calendar: If you post all your best photos on your social media feeds, why not transform them into a calendar? The Instagram Calendar theme makes it super easy.

Think beyond January!

The benefits of custom calendars are many and varied, with endless ways to personalize your calendar’s appearance and function. One of the simplest ways to make a calendar more versatile is by changing the start month – it doesn’t have to be January. A different starting month can be useful for work, cultural, and personal reasons. You could align a calendar with the school year, sports seasons, tax seasons, or lunar calendar.

Take this customization further by adding key dates and events directly to the days of the calendar. Your industry’s deadlines, kids’ extracurricular activities, book club meetings, and workout schedules are just a few examples. Brainstorm the reminders that are helpful for you and your family, and be sure to include them in your custom design before clicking “Order.”

Ready to create your own custom photo calendar?

It doesn’t matter if it’s new year’s day or any other day of the year – making your own custom photo calendar is a rewarding and worthwhile project. Get started on yours today.