Tuesday, April 9, 2013

DIY Weekly Menu Board


In our house it is embarrassing how much food we waste each week and in turn how much money we waste by throwing food away and making extra trips to the store for more. So I'm making a serious effort to plan out meals each week and be more conscious of what I'm buying and spending.  In order to keep myself on track, or at least attempt to, I whipped up this cute, rustic of course version of a simple menu board and we LOVE it!

The main portion, which I forgot to take a picture of.. bad blogger I know, I know.. was a big thrift store floral print with a wood frame.  I took out the glass, covered the print in some tan linen fabric and hot glued that to the back, then took three pieces of twine and glued those ends one the back side, spacing them evenly down the side.  For the frame I painted it off white, then flat black and distressed it a bit with sand paper... super easy!!!


For the recipe cards I took these little wood pieces from Michael's and sprayed them with chalkboard paint.  They are only .29 cents a piece so I bought a bunch and then you can use chalk or I love chalkboard or bistro markers.. they look crisper than regular chalk and don't rub off as easily.  You could just print out the recipes that you do make on a regular basis and mod podge those on, but we like to try new things and mix it up a lot so I wanted to be able to change them frequently. 


For the days of the week, I just created a word document in a font I liked, printed them off and then using oval wood pieces that I found in the same section as the rectangle pieces, I traced around them, cut them out and then used mod podge to glue them onto the wood. 


Once the glue was dry I used a sharpie to color the edge of the wood pieces for some contrast and added a little Annie Sloan dark wax to the top to make it look aged.  Now just glue (I used a glue gun) the MENU letters (also from Michael's painted black) to the top and the days of the weeks plus a recipes oval spaced out on your fabric. 


Then just add clothes pin to the twine to attach your meal ideas under each day, I also added a recipes section at the bottom for extra blank pieces and a black burlap rosette just for fun.


This fit perfectly in a kind of awkward space in my kitchen, and I love it! 


The menu board is really helping to visually remind me to think out the entire week and so far we are doing so much better!!!


The entire project was so quick and easy, I can't believe I've had the idea and material for months and only now got around to doing it!!!


I hope you like it and it inspires you to be more organized with your meals and save some money!!


Because you know what that means... more money for shoes :)

Enjoy,




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