Organization Archives - Yearning to Create

Dinner/Message Board Redo

I made these wonderful Dinner Menu and Message Boards a while ago – you can read all about that here! Anyway, the boards are working exactly as I hoped they would – meaning that we use them all the time and are all getting trained to check them for messages. And there are no more annoying little pieces of paper floating around with messages on them, or no messages scribbled on that important paper I needed.

However, the colours weren’t quite working for me yet – probably because I got a huge book of lovely new scrapbook papers. I figured out that it was the pale yellow I didn’t like – so it was time to rip it apart!!!

After much deliberating, I chose this pretty light teal colour and simply glued it on over the yellow. (Yes, that is my bed I’m working on, mostly because my baby hasn’t figured out how to climb up on it so I can work in peace, not like at the kitchen table!)

Yes, I’m loving these colours much more – not that I have anything against yellow (unless I’m supposed to wear it – then I look jaundice!).

That “I Love You Message” has been on there for months. I can’t bring myself to erase it!!!

Notice the little strip of new paper right below the green – that’s over yellow too, and just ties the boards in nicely to each other.

And there are the two boards side-by-side.

And here they sit in my temporary kitchen – very convenient right by the phone.

And to wrap it up, I really recommend these boards!!! The Dinner board makes me plan ahead somewhat! (I can do better – notice the empty, unplanned spaces! I just find that my days go so much smoother when the dinner menu is already planned.) And the Message Board . . . let me compare it to Pinterest – how did I ever live without it???

Bedroom Caddies – A Recycle Project

I love making something cute and useful from garbage!!! I got these from the Primary cupboard at church. I had to empty out the cupboard a little to make some more space and so I lugged these to the garbage can that I had just watched the Young Men empty a few hours before. So rather than fill up the garbage can, I decided to carry them home and put them with my recycling.

So on my trek all the way across the parking lot to my house, I realized that they were pretty sturdy little boxes that could be turned into something very useful for some of my girlies.

The first and only task for my girls was to choose the paper they liked best – this was probably the most time consuming part of the whole process!!!

Eventually they chose these – two for each. And they also chose what pieces they wanted on the front and edges – again, very time consuming!!!

Then it was my turn to get to work – me and the mod podge. Have I mentioned before how much I love mod podge?

Anyway, I had no real plan, I just started. It seemed like the sensible thing to start with the edges, and it was.

I just applied the mod podge with a small foam brush and put the paper on, smoothing it down and around the edges.

I didn’t bother to cover the back any more than this.

After I had all the paper in place, I let it dry overnight and mod podged over the whole thing the next day. I didn’t need to wait overnight, but I had to clear off the table and get supper ready (can’t wait for a craft room in my new house!!!)

How cute is that? My practice one is covered, so I tackled the other two together.

I just laid the box on my paper to figure out the approximate size of the angled pieces, then trimmed to fit.

Cute paper eh? I’m really loving shades of teal these days.

This project used exactly two 12 x 12 pieces of paper. I used contrasting papers, but you don’t need to.

Love lime too!

Boxes are all covered – time to get on with other things and let everything dry.

The next day I attached some names and mod podged over everything.

Now for the decorating . . .

Lee’s name was attached with pop dots to make it, well, pop!

Jen’s was antiqued with ribbon and flowers added.

And Kat’s is more cutesy – she was thrilled with the bow and flowers!

Aren’t they adorable???

The light through the blinds makes them look wrinkly, but I promise you they dried beautiful and smooth!

Still can’t decide which one I like best.

Lee loves hers and . . .

Jen loves hers and . . .

Kat loves hers!!!

Want to see what they’ve done with them?

Lee filled hers with this sort of girly stuff.

For now Jen has animals living in her caddy.

And Kat’s holds her library books!

My Jo wistfully said to me “Mom, you know there’s another one of those in the Primary cupboard and you could make me one.” I replied, “I know, but it’s holding Primary things.” What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been thinking that I could easily find another container for the Primary things, and use it to make one for ME!!!

Menu Board/Message Board

In searching for ideas for our RS Super Saturday about two years ago, I found a menu board idea at Melanie’s Musings that I just had to copy. It seemed like such a great idea – and it is!!! And let me tell you, on days that I menu plan and write the meals on the board, life is so much easier!

We colour photocopied the inside page that I made, for ladies at the Super Saturday. Then they just had to take care of the framing. On the right is a list of possible menu ideas. I usually have that in a pocket glued on the back of the frame, and the clothes peg holds my shopping list.

Anyway, I love the Menu Board so much and it’s working so well, I decided to make something similar to become our family message board. I thought it would be very handy to have all the messages in one spot and not be losing little papers with phone messages written on them! And it is!!!

First item was to find a matching frame – thanks Walmart! I like the document size frame as it is slightly larger than an 8 x 10.

Then I centered the stickers saying Message Board. To do this, I marked the center of the glass (see my little black dot) and then worked from the center out to the edges. And I wrote out the words I was spelling so I wouldn’t mess it up!!!

Now, I used to have a burgundy and maple kitchen and this Menu Board matched it wonderfully. But, in the new house we’re building, I’m not going to have any burgundy on the main floor, so I needed to redo the colours of my board.

Pretty cute eh? By the oven mitt it says Quality Time. I really feel that supper is an important family bonding time. I believe that what our children really want for supper is us!

The next task was to design the Message Board to match the Menu Board because they will be side by side in my new house.

This is what I came up with . . .

It says “Family” there on the green paper.

I made five of these little message slots, and the long one across the bottom says “Notes”. The only rule we have is that the message can only be erased by the person who it’s for. And it’s so easy to erase – just a swipe of your finger across the glass (or you could use a kleenex!).

And there’s my two boards! I only attached a dry-erase marker to one of them because they are so close they can share. But I’ll probably add a clothes peg to the Message Board to hold things like birthday party invitations.

It’s working great – the family have all learned to look to that one spot for their messages!!! Wish I’d done this years ago!

Family Birthday Board

My guy doesn’t ask for much in the way of crafts (yeah, a shocker I know!) so when he suggests something, I listen. He requested that somewhere in the house we have a birthday list so he can see when family members’ birthdays are. I thought that was a fabulous idea!!!

My friend did a craft class last week and she was doing magnetic boards as calendars. I knew that would be the perfect thing to change a little and make into our Family Birthday Board. I just printed up four pages with three months on each page, to cover the family birthdays for the year. My guy and I both come from large families and we’re adding five more babies to the family in the next few months – the families are growing at alarming rates!!! And very hard to keep track of (facebook certainly helps though!!!).

Start with a piece of metal – it’s about 9 x 14.

Its edges are nicely turned under so it’s not sharp.

Then you mod podge the paper onto the metal – both under and over the paper. And don’t worry – the air bubbles disappeared when it was completely dry. I like to do a cross-hatch pattern in my mod podge – kinda gives it a look of canvas when it dries.

Two little mini clothes pegs are holding on my sign and picture. And I love that strip of lace going through the middle – adds a nice texture to the board.

Stamped this with a dollar store alphabet set and then mod podged over it all for protection (it is in the kitchen after all – water fights have happened before!!!).

This picture was the right size so it’s doing the job right now, even though it’s missing the baby. In the future, I think a sepia photo would look lovely!

My cute as a button magnets!!!

I glued magnets on the back of mine too so it sticks to the fridge, but you could also hang it with a ribbon.

Lovin it!!! Lovin it!!!

And when new members join the family through birth or marriage, I’ll just write their names in the appropriate spot in black ink and then update the charts on the computer when needed. And I suppose I could even add anniversaries if I wanted to.

So do you want to know what my guy thought about the craft he inspired?

He loves it too!!!