Get Organized: Weekly Menu Planner DIY

For the past couple years I have been searching for the perfect menu planner. Being a mom of (now) two kids, one almost 4 and and infant, I find that my weekly menus have to be planned out. BUT I also have found that what I planned for one day may not work out due to time, tantrums, exhaustion, etc., so I needed something versatile.
I was never able to find just the right fit for me so I decided to make my own!

Of course I failed to take step by step pics, but I will explain how I made this menu board.

Materials Needed

Wood- we got ours at Home Depot's scrap area for $4 and cut it at home with a skill saw
Paint- I used leftover paint, but you can get a sample size paint in any color at Home Depot for about $3
Kraft Cardstock- I had tons of this leftover from something so that's what I used
Legible Font- I used Muro Regular
Some Program That Allows You to Print Squares- I used Word (just insert a table and drag it to the size you want)
Paper Trimmer- to cut straight lines
Washi Tape- to reinforce where you will put the wire through the cardstock, also for cuteness!
28 Gauge Steel Galvanized Wire- for the cardstock hangers
22 gauge Wire- to hang up on the wall
Nails

• First things first, paint the first coat so it can be drying while you do everything else. As soon as it's dry, do another one and then a third coat for good  measure. Unless your paint isn't as old as mine. Then you'll probably just need two coats.
• Make a list of ALL recipes that you know. As you can see above I also have a card for Takeout (best night of the month which is why it is so colorful!) and a "try something new" card for when I am bored of the usual. I plan on making a new card upon cooking a successful meal.
• Print them all out from your word program.
• Cut them.
• Put washi tape along the top of each card so they don't rip when inserting wire.
• Measure even(ish) lengths of wire and put through the top of each card. I used an upholstery needle to poke through the washi tape and cardstock, but you could use anything pokey.
• We measured the wood so that we could fit the weekdays into one row. 
• We left an inch and a half measured for the day labels.
• Hammer nails below each day label- we angled ours so the meals don't fall off
• Add something fancy to the bottom for cuteness factor
• Hang and you're done! You now have the coolest menu planner out of anyone that you know!

Here is a close up of the cards:

I hope that was easy to understand and that it helps make your kitchen a little more organized!

2 DIY Projects for Baby Mabel

Mabel will be in a co-sleeper in the corner of my room for the first several months. Co-sleepers are not attractive and they don't have sheets that come in cute colors. I wanted Mabel to have something colorful (not that she will know either way...but I will!) so I decided to tackle a triangle quilt. I had never sewed anything even close to this difficult before so I knew I was being fairly ambitious.
I followed this tutorial (which was AMAZING). I didn't want the muted colors she chose (even though they are gorgeous), nor did I care about ombre. I just wanted something that felt like sunshine and happiness.

After I completed the quilt I said I would never make another one, but that may not be entirely true. Cutting and sewing the triangles was easy. 

The hard part for me was when I tried to actually "quilt" the triangles. My machine couldn't handle the thickness. I spent several frustrating hours trying and taking out stitches. I didn't want to hand tie it but after I finished I love the vintage look it adds to the quilt.

The other hard part for me was binding the quilt with double-bias tape. I'm sure it gets easier as you go but holy moly. It was a beast. 

This quilt is far (try a million miles) from perfect but I know that it makes me happy to look at, and hopefully Mabel will love and appreciate it when she's older (because trust me, this blanket is in our family for life, haha!).

The second project I completed was a DIY mobile. I will post better pictures after it's actually hanging.

I started with the felt suns from this tutorial. I modified the pattern to fit my needs, which were MUCH smaller. I made four suns, not knowing exactly what I was going to end up with mobile-wise. The felt suns were the only tutorial I followed...for everything else I winged it.

I then decided to take 16 foam balls and cover them in fabric. I was originally planning on painting them but figured fabric would match the quilt better. I used leftover fabric for this. 

I then threaded 4 foam balls through a string of fishing line. I did that 4 times for 4 strands. I tried to make them even but wasn't stressing about it since any irregularities would add to the look I was going for.

I threaded each sun on a separate fishing line.

The top of the mobile is an embroidery hoop. I marked off 8 places where the suns and fabric balls would go. 

I threaded the top of the fishing line between the two hoops and then tightened it as much as possible. 

I had very cute, thick, green yarn leftover from something years ago, so I used that to wrap around the embroidery hoop. It completed the 70's look of the mobile.

You can't see it in this picture (because I hadn't done it yet) but I used hot pink yarn to hang it.

I can't wait to see it hanging up and I especially can't wait to see my new baby laying underneath it!

Only 7 (at the most) more weeks until I meet my new baby girl!!

DIYing My House

Or should I say, DIM (myself)? Haha okay that wasn't very funny. It's been a long day!
Moving on!

For years, in our dining room, we have had a long black piece of furniture from Ikea, used to store my art supplies and Neely's craft supplies. And since the top is a flat surface, it has also been used to hold everything I am too lazy to put away as I'm walking through the dining room, and a bunch of house plants that are severely neglected (sorry plants). I knew it was messy and terrible looking but I didn't know what to do about it. Above that, on the wall, was a large rasterbated image of Frank Sinatra.
UNTIL several months ago I saw on A Beautiful Mess' blog, the architect prints. I immediately knew I wanted to do something with some sort of giant print but I had no wall space and no ideas.
A couple months ago we decided to get rid of the Frank Sinatra print and were left with a big, blank wall. I remembered the architect prints and knew that was the perfect solution!
I went to Kinkos and had them print me a picture I had taken of Neely. I chose 3'x4' because our wall space is 5'x5'.
When they handed it to me, I was amazed. Not only did it look perfect, but also, it cost me $6. Can't beat that! If you get one of these made, just note that I'm not sure if they let you print out someone else's picture, so you might want to check ahead.
I chose to hang it with office clamps because I wanted a more industrialish look.
Once it was hung up I knew it needed something else.
I decided I wanted to do a variation of this idea. Instead of making my own felt balls from wool roving I opted to buy pre-made ones. Not only was it more convenient, it was way cheaper. I attached them to floral wire. I bought a thin piece of wood from Home Depot and painted it flat black (I actually used gesso.). Once it was painted, Brett drilled 12 tiny holes in the top of it and then attached it to the wall. I filled each hole with a felt ball attached to wire, now looking like cute colorful flowers.
The effect I wanted was a tiny splash of color against the massive black and white print.
Super simple and I am so happy with how it turned out!

January Home Project

You saw the wall I did for Christmas, right? Well now it's a blank canvas and is now my January decorating project. These yarn balls are hot glued to twigs that we found on a family adventure. I will be putting them into vases that I make and will post here once they're done.
I am also repainting a piece of furniture that was passed to me from my parents. It's always been green but I am almost greened out now. Green was my color for years but I am moving on to different colors. Have you ever gotten to that point? Where everything is a certain color and one day you wake up and realize you need to change everything? I am thankful for Pinterest because it allows me to change things with little to no money involved.
In our house we don't have too much space (fine by me!) and I would have to paint my pictures on the dining room table instead of in a studio space. So, decorating is the only way I can express my creativity while Neely is still little enough to get into all of my painting supplies.
My mom is a world-class decorator so it's in my bones.
I recently told Brett I would probably never be completely satisfied with our home decor because I am always finding ways to improve things. He loves it though, luckily!

If you're reading this, I'd love to hear about a home project you're working on! I need more creative people in my life!

Pinterest Craft Mania

I've been a crafting freak lately. So I decided anything I make from Pinterest ideas up until Christmas will fall under this category:

I saw a similar repurposed tray on Pinterest (which as it turns out is from someone's Etsy store) and I knew that I had to make one! The SAME day I was at a thrift store and saw that ugly tray on the left and knew it would be perfect! I think this tray cost me around a quarter.
I sanded it, sprayed chalkboard paint (from Home Depot) over the entire thing, (which, in hindsight was dumb because it caused me to have to put on a million coats of yellow) and painted it a color called Mustard Seed. It's WAY more mustardy than the pic...I'm not sure why it's so bright yellow there!
I ordered a chalk pen from an etsy store and voila! A repurposed tray! I'm so pleased with it! I will attach wire to the back and hang it up after Thanksgiving.

This area used to have a cluster of pictures of Neely but they looked too small on this 5 foot wall.

Following this idea from Pinterest (of course!), I went to Kinko's and had this picture of Neely printed today. Instead of mounting it I used office clamps to hang it. I like the look and am going to get rid of the plants under it so it's more of a statement. The entire thing including 10 clamps cost me $7.

This is an old slate from the 50's (at least) that I picked up at a garage sale last weekend for $1. I used the chalk pen to write down this dreamy poem by Pablo Neruda. This will be hanging in my living room after we get our couch back from being reupholstered and I take down our giant Björk print. I have a lot of pinteresting ideas for our living room wall...stay tuned!!

I love crafting.

Wrapping Presents!

I've been trying to wrap presents differently this year. I (along with 204737 other women) am obsessed with kraft paper so I bought some several weeks ago to use instead of wrapping paper. I have been looking on Pinterest and racking my brain to come up with cute ideas. This is the first year of my life that I've seriously enjoyed wrapping presents! It's more like crafting instead of just wrapping. Next year I'll start earlier and all of our presents will be wonderfully wrapped.
The reason I'm tooting my own horn is because normally my presents look like a third grader wrapped them. My mom is the best present wrapper alive so I have a lot to live up to! I'm on my way, mom! 

Have you done any fun packaging this season? I'd love to see it!

DIY Thank-You Cards

I recently had a birthday and was given very nice gifts by my friends and family! Since they went through all the trouble to give me thoughtful gifts I figured I should send them thoughtful thank-you cards.

These are so simple you probably could look at them and know how to make them but just in case...

Supplies:
- several pieces of plain 5x7 cardstock (I happen to have tons of thick art paper laying around so I used that. Any thick paper is fine.)
- sewing machine loaded with thread (I used hot pink on the top and white on the bobbin so it would blend in with the paper more.)
- scrap fabric
- pen
- washi tape (I got mine here)

Instructions:

1. Fold each paper in half.
2. Unfold so that you only sew on one side of the card.
3. Take scrap fabric and place on card in intended position.
1.  When sewing on paper it's important to use a thicker needle and adjust your machine's tension before sewing. My machine is set at a 4, but each machine is different.
4. Sew!
5. Leave ends loose for a more organic feel. I didn't worry about back-stitching because it'll most likely get thrown away once it's read, it's just for the initial look.
6. Write sentiment on front and inside!
7. Seal envelope with washi tape to complete the look!

These cute cards will be a welcome addition to anyone's mailbox! Don't stop at just thank-you's, send notes to just say hi!

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Pinterest: Recent Projects

I spent the first half of my Labor Day crafting! It rained all day here in sunny San Diego, so I'm glad I had something to do!
We have lived in this house for about 5 months. For 5 months I have been telling myself to figure out something for Neely's room. It has been BARE. A couple months ago my mom made curtains and that made such a difference, but all of the walls were still bare.
So I went to my trusty Pinterest for help. I created a "Neely Room Ideas" board and have been pinning like crazy for quite some time.
I finally put a couple ideas together, bought supplies and crafted a cute cute cute wall for above her crib! (not sure why her wall looks pink; it's white.)

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I took inspiration from here, which follows a wonderful tutorial that I used and can be found here.
And of course, the bunting I see EVERYWHERE and I found an easy tutorial here.

I love accomplishing things and I love the final product!! I think my favorite part of the project was choosing fabrics. Her room has always been mostly pink and I want it to have ALL colors. I found and fell in love with a fabric bundle that was all reds, oranges, yellows and greens. I think most people at first glance would have put it away knowing that DUH red and pink clash. But I had to have it. I wished so hard that my mom would magically appear to give me guidance, but that didn't work so I did some quick brainstorming in the store. I slowly walked through the pink fabric section and found exactly what I needed.
I found two fabrics that were not only complimentary to each other, they had red AND pink in them! You can see them in the picture, they're the ones in the largest frames. They were the key to making it all work.
The bunting was an afterthought. I figured it would help to tie all of the fabrics (her curtain fabric included) together, and I was right!
Now when you enter Neely's room you're hit with a splash of color and a happy feeling inside! I love color.

Now I have to start her other giant blank wall! I have some supplies already and will hopefully at least start it this week.
Once her room is finished I'll take more/better pictures and post them!