What's for dinner?

Finding time to craft these days has proven to be difficult. I find myself coming up with lots of ideas for things to create, but no time to complete them. Well, I am happy to say that I managed to finish a project that I have been needing for sometime now. Here it is:





It is my new write on/ wipe off weekly menu. Every day at our house I answer the question "what's for dinner" multiple times (usually to moans and groans when I give my response). So in order to divert the question, give my kids a chance for dinner input and also to keep myself more organized, I created my weekly menu board.

First:
I created the little baking embellishments for my menu. I used to do a lot of paper piecing several years ago, and I forgot how fun that was! I also created and printed out the weekly schedule.

Second:
I found some fun scrapbook paper in my stash that matched my kitchen and pulled it all together.

Third: I found this cute "leather" frame at a discount grocery store near my home and I "jazzed" it up a bit. I hot glued scrabble tiles (that I found at a garage sale) to spell out DINNER and I am happy to announce that I only burned myself 3 times while trying to get them all lined up neatly. :) Next I decorated a clothespin with scrapbook paper and a ribbon and attached that to the frame as well. I will explain the purpose of the clothespin in just a minute. Last, I wanted my dry erase marker to remain with the frame so that I wouldn't have to hunt it down everytime I needed it, so I took a small piece of elastic from my sewing stash and stapled it to the frame. Then I took some more ribbon and tied it around the elastic to make it look cute! *hint* Be sure to place the marker in the elastic before tying on your ribbon to make sure that you don't tie it too tight.

Once the frame was completed, I put it all together. Now I can just write out a weekly dinner plan on the glass of the frame and just like that it wipes off when we're done so I can start over the next week.

The clothespin is a handy little contraption, because its job is to hold my cute grocery lists that I created to match. Now as I am planning dinners, I can just jot done on my list what I need at the store each week to prepare the planned meals. So simple, convenient and organized. The clothespin is also handy at holding on to your recipes that you are using that week.

One more tip. On the back of the frame I adhered an envelope and in the envelope is a card with a list of some of our favorite dinners to help me plan for the week. I often find that I can't remember what my family likes to eat, so now I have a quick little reference guide to help me plan. *see 30 meals here*

That's it! Now go make one for yourself and one for a friend. Makes a great Christmas gift! And my gift to you...
my grocery list and menu plan
FREE for you to print and use!

Enjoy!