Menu Board

Hi Folks!

After a long dry spell I finally had a crafty weekend, or should I say week? I had a friend over for a few days and it was fun to spend some time crafting with her.

The highlight of my weekend was making a menu board for my kitchen. Menu planning is something I have always struggled with, and I have loved some of the menu boards I have seen on friends' blogs and on Pinterest. This weekend I finally had the joy of making my own! Yay!

Here is what the board looked like when I began. I decided to use this particular board largely because, though we have several corkboards in the house, it was the first/only one we could find at the moment I decided I was making my menu board RIGHT NOW! LOL My poor hubby - he is so patient with me!

He even tried it on the wall to make sure it was going to fit vertically or horizontally so that I would be safe no matter where my creative juices led!

I had some leftover checkered paper and green paper I really wanted to use as they are my favourite colours, and chose a pink for the background. I also had some labels left over from the ones I made to label my kitchen cupboards so inked the edges of them in the same purple that I used on the labels, then stamped MENU on them. From there I was not really sure where to go and started playing around with multiple ideas.

I knew I wanted two pockets on it, and was originally toying with making them from envelopes but was afraid that would not be sturdy enough to last in my house. Finally I had a brilliant idea - I emptied the playing cards out of two boxes then cut the tops off to get the size I wanted. I then scored my cardstock and covered them, and added labels that matched my title.

At this point in time I got completely stuck and felt like I was going nowhere fast. I also discovered that our clothes pins are either missing or still packed, so now I had a good excuse to make a run to the dollar store. I am so glad I did! While there I found lots of embellishments in my favourite colours, and a perfect match for this board! I also found a jumbo-sized clothespin. I wasn't sure how that was going to mesh with my whole menu board but I knew I loved it and would find a way!

Back home the creative juices started to really flow! However, the background seemed a bit blah, and when Amanda offered a piece of purple paper instead we knew we had a winner! What a difference the brighter purple made! The clothespins got covered in the same green paper as the card boxes. I then wrote the days of the week on the little ones so that I would know where in my week I was at, then modpodged to make them hold up better to being handled.  I used wood glue to attach everything, largely because I couldn't find my hot glue gun. I have three or four of them and they have all grown legs and wandered off, probably with the scissors and nail clippers! What's with that anyway? I digress...

I glued everything on, added some pretties, and voila! A menu board! I especially love how the large clothes pin provides balance to the other side of the board, where I also have space for building my grocery list.

Here is a close-up of the menu side (and thanks to Tanner for the photos):

I chose to label my boxes "Planned Meals" and "Menu Ideas" as my shopping rarely lines up with the calendar. That way when I shop I can add all the meals I have ingredients for to the "Planned Meals" box and work from there when setting up my schedule for each week. If I end up moving things around, unused meals go back in that box again, and once we have eaten them, the card returns to the "Menu Ideas" box. For now I have also put in some blank cards and a pen as I didn't want to think through my whole menu in one shot

I am so excited to use my pretty board, and my kids are excited because Mummy managed to plan dinner before 6 at night two nights in a row!

Have a super week!

Why I Now Save My Cans

I made this beautiful garbage can for my daughter a while ago. She needed something for her room to collect the endless bits of garbage she seems to make in a day. I had made smaller ones a few years ago for a birthday party, but now I am grabbing the true potential of containers.

To make this garbage can was so easy:
Open your cans with one of those can openers that removes the whole lid without leaving sharp edges. Clean and dry your can thoroughly before decorating your container.
Choose your paper and measure it to the right height, and cut it. I found it best to measure the height to the inside of the metal rim. Because my container was so big (this is the 2.84L Costco diced tomato tin) I needed two pieces of paper. I chose to repeat the same pattern but you could use complementary papers. My papers came embossed with these sayings. You can cut out or stamp words to add if you want something on there that's personalized, like a name.
I hot glue gunned the papers on the can, then covered all my edges with ribbon. I then embellished with a few punched out hearts and a couple flowers and I was done. 15 minutes for a gorgeous garbage can!
I have more can ideas in my head so hopefully they will be published soon, as long as I can keep my recycling-happy family from removing all my cans! LOL

Creating... an Island of Opportunity (Literally!)

Anyone else have a wish list of what they would like in a house? And if you tell me no, I'll know you're lying! LOL We all have that list of things we wish our homes had, or that we would like to have "someday" in the next house, or when we renovate.
One of the items that has always been on my dream list is a kitchen island. Whenever we looked at those fancy contest houses, or flipped through magazines, islands were one of those things I was always pointing out to my hubby.
Our last home had a tiny galley kitchen. If we had put an island in there we would have had to remove the rest of the kitchen first. I don't think so!
Our new home, however, has a beautiful huge kitchen that came with a big open space. Michael immediately started planning all the ways we could put in an island. I wasn't so sure. I was afraid that an island would crowd our kitchen, making all our nice airy space disappear. He also noticed how our kitchen was huge, but because our pantry was so deep, as were all our big corner cupboards, I was actually wishing for more accessible space, especially drawers. Then my darling hubby came up with the perfect solution. He gave me an island for Christmas.

Isn't it cute? This little darling sits in the middle of our kitchen providing lots of extra drawer space and a great extra little counter to work on. I must admit, I wasn't sold on the idea, even on Christmas morning when I opened it. However, later in the day, I noticed that even though we had tons of counter space, we all gathered around our tiny island to prep dinner for the table. Since then, I have come to wonder how I ever lived without it! And that was just the surface and the top drawer! The other two drawers only got loaded yesterday!

Now to show you the planning and prep Michael (who is usually a December 24th shopper) put into this island, and how easily you could do one without breaking the bank!
First Michael visited a demolitions place and bought a used cabinet set (one with drawers obviously). Other places you could get them are Craigslist, Freecycle, talking to renovations contractors, or by asking around your friends and neighbours.
Next he got a melamine board and melamine strips from Home Depot and used them to enclose the back. He measured and cut the board to fit the back, then used the strips to cover the wood that still showed along the sides at the back.
For the top he attached a small kitchen countertop. We are lucky enough to have a friend who works at a cabinet shop and was able to match it pretty close to our kitchen counters, and to make it for Michael. Michael then just drilled it into the spots provided on the cabinet. Other options for a top would include using a large wood cutting board and attaching that, or cutting an old countertop to size and covering it with melamine like for the sides.
Now I have a lovely island in the middle of my floor, and it can even be shifted to clean under it! LOL

Michael says he has other home ideas up his sleeve. I am looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!