We hope everyone had amazing adventures with family over the past couple of long weekends (depending on which province you live in).  With Family Day in mind this week we decided to make a family menu planner. Coming up with ideas for what to eat every night is easier when a wide range of tasty ideas are at the ready.

All of your tried and true meals and ones that you’ve been waiting to try are written on small title cards to reference the recipes stored in your recipe box or app.  Don’t worry if Thursday rolls around and you’re not feeling it anymore, simply unclip that dish and either switch it into another day or put it back in the holder. The best thing is about menu planning is you have good meals lined up without having to think about it.  Time saved makes for easier, no stress evenings and we can all use more of those!  The Menu Planner is easy project; although with all of the painting it does take a bit of time so do leave yourself at least a couple of hours to complete this one.

What You’ll Need:

–          Wood plaque at least 12” by 18”

–          Small wood circles or shape or your choice

–          Cardboard or wood box

–          Ruler

–          Small wood circles, seven in total

–          Seven clothespins

–          Letter stencils

–          Acrylic paints in three colours (I used navy, blue grey and white)

–          Stencil pouncer

–          Paint brush

–          Glue gun and sticks

–          Not pictured:

–          Stencil spray

–          Floral stencil image

Step One: Painting

Paint your wood plaque in the colour of your choice.  The plaque I had is already white and had stripes like bead board.  I chose to use those stripes and painted the plaque to leave white stripes for the background of the planner. Set aside to dry.

Paint the wood box, I used the navy for this step. Set aside to dry.

Paint the clothespins and set aside to dry. I used navy on the clothespins .

Paint the wood circle and let dry.  For this step I chose the white paint.

Paint the small wood circles in the same colour as the large circle. Set aside.

Step Two: Stenciling 

Use your floral stencil to make a design on the wood box.  Use the stencil spray and pouncer to stencil the image in white.  Let dry.  I didn’t originally intend to have an image in this spot but after painting the box I could see that it needed something extra and I’m glad I decided to add this.

Use your letter stencils to title your board on the large wood circle.  This step take the longest, you need to make sure each letter dries before moving on so that you don’t smudge any of the paint.  After all the letters are complete add a shadow in the blue grey by using a small paint brush to paint lines on one side of the letters.

Use the same letter stencils to paint the days of the week onto the small wood circles and let dry.

Step Three: Assembly

Glue the small wood circles onto the clothespins.

Use the ruler to space the clothespins out evenly along the long edge of the wood plaque on the left side.  Glue them in place.

Glue the title circle to the right side of the wood plaque.

Attach the wood box to the bottom right side of the wood plaque.  This is the final step; add some pens and menu cards to the box and your Family Menu Planner is ready to use.

Check out another Home Decor Project – DIY Mandala Wood Plaques