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| spray painting the frame |
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| list of ingredients on the back of the taco meal card |
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| completed Menu Board hanging in my kitchen |
Monday, January 21, 2013
Meal Planning and a Menu Board
As I have mentioned before in other posts, I do a lot of prep work when it comes to food. Sometimes I prepare meals ahead of time and freeze them. I always menu plan. I have a notebook where I write down 7 meals for the week. That is how I create my shopping list (as well as looking for staples that are low or out). Planning a specific meal for a specific day was not working for us. Creating a menu board of some sort seemed like a good idea to organize the meal planning for everyone to see. I found many ideas but went with the one below. It uses a picture frame, spray paint, clothespins, scrapbook paper and envelopes. Our kitchen has recently been upgraded and the color scheme is red, black, and white. I chose to paint the frame white so it would pop off of the red walls. Each of the meals is listed on small cards and on the backs is a list of the ingredients needed to make the meal. This way, after I choose 7 meals, I can look at the backs to create my grocery list for the week.
A "Pin"teresting November-Part 3-Fun!
For the third installment of my "Pin"teresting November blogs, I will focus on the fun projects and activities I did with/for Derek.
He is really into Angry Birds so I saw an idea to make a huge Angry Birds game out of boxes. Unfortunately the link from Pinterest has gone bad so I cannot link it but these are the pictures of what we made. Since it's cold outside, we made it in the foyer of the house. Derek has some Angry Bird stuffed animals so we used those in the game. If I were to do it outside I would most likely use rubber playground balls.
Another thing he loves to do is play with play doh and cars so I combined the two! There is a recipe to make play doh that looks like dirt. It's made with coffee so he calls it coffee play doh. I was unable to get it to be the same color as that in the picture. But he enjoyed it anyway.
Finally, I made a card for a 2 year old who was having tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed. I saw this card and I thought it was really cute for a kid's get well card! It is so simple too. Band-aids and googly eyes!
He is really into Angry Birds so I saw an idea to make a huge Angry Birds game out of boxes. Unfortunately the link from Pinterest has gone bad so I cannot link it but these are the pictures of what we made. Since it's cold outside, we made it in the foyer of the house. Derek has some Angry Bird stuffed animals so we used those in the game. If I were to do it outside I would most likely use rubber playground balls.
Another thing he loves to do is play with play doh and cars so I combined the two! There is a recipe to make play doh that looks like dirt. It's made with coffee so he calls it coffee play doh. I was unable to get it to be the same color as that in the picture. But he enjoyed it anyway.
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| Mud-Like Play Doh |
Finally, I made a card for a 2 year old who was having tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed. I saw this card and I thought it was really cute for a kid's get well card! It is so simple too. Band-aids and googly eyes!
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| Get Well Soon Card |
A "Pin"teresting November-Part 2-Christmas
I started prepping for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. I like to do a lot of handmade things and that takes time so I need to get an early start. Here are some of the things I made this year.
Those fancy dresses are cute but way too pricy for me when my daughter was only going to wear in maybe twice. I found this idea and made it on a 9 month sized onsie. The original design uses pink (as if girls don't wear enough pink), but I used Christmas colors instead. After all, it IS a Christmas shirt!
I think I am going to use that idea to make a book of birth announcements as well.
The majority of my Christmas decorations were handmade by my grandmothers and my great aunt. Some of them are also things that were given to me as a baby. When these decorations are eventually passed down to my children, I want them to know where they came from. The following idea shows how to do that. I used s 4x6 photo album and took pictures of the important decorations. On a 4x6 index card I wrote an explanation of who made it and why it is important. I thought hand writing that information was the best way to go.
Finally, I wanted to create an Advent calendar for Derek, and eventually Brooke, that had them doing special activities and things to help others. I searched for several different ideas to find the best way to create my own Advent calendar. The idea I ended up making uses a 16x20 canvas, spray paint, and clothespins. I also added stickers for decoration. The original idea called for making cards for each day with the date on one side and the activity on the other. This does not allow for any movement of activities from year to year and I didn't want to be stuck doing the same thing in the same order every year. I created a list of several activities and I put the numbers on the clothespins. This way I can easily change the activities every year.
Those fancy dresses are cute but way too pricy for me when my daughter was only going to wear in maybe twice. I found this idea and made it on a 9 month sized onsie. The original design uses pink (as if girls don't wear enough pink), but I used Christmas colors instead. After all, it IS a Christmas shirt!
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| Christmas Tree Onsie |
I never know what to do with all of the adorable picture cards I receive at Christmas. I saw this idea and thought it was a cute, easy way to display them every year. Make them into a book! I made two books (so far). The first one has cards that were sent before WE had children. The second book starts when we had our son, Derek. I made dividers to separate the years and the first photo for each year is the card that we sent out.
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| Photo Card Books |
The majority of my Christmas decorations were handmade by my grandmothers and my great aunt. Some of them are also things that were given to me as a baby. When these decorations are eventually passed down to my children, I want them to know where they came from. The following idea shows how to do that. I used s 4x6 photo album and took pictures of the important decorations. On a 4x6 index card I wrote an explanation of who made it and why it is important. I thought hand writing that information was the best way to go.
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| Decoration Information Book |
Finally, I wanted to create an Advent calendar for Derek, and eventually Brooke, that had them doing special activities and things to help others. I searched for several different ideas to find the best way to create my own Advent calendar. The idea I ended up making uses a 16x20 canvas, spray paint, and clothespins. I also added stickers for decoration. The original idea called for making cards for each day with the date on one side and the activity on the other. This does not allow for any movement of activities from year to year and I didn't want to be stuck doing the same thing in the same order every year. I created a list of several activities and I put the numbers on the clothespins. This way I can easily change the activities every year.
A "Pin"teresting November-Part 1-Food
In November I decided to focus on doing new projects. I hosted a party early in the month and used some of my pins to make food for my guests. Pumpkin was my theme for the majority of the foods that I made.
For the muffins, I used spice cake mix instead of yellow. The brownies were made with a box of brownie mix and a can of pumpkin. I also made pumpkin hot chocolate (not pictured).
Having a three year old means eating pizza once a week. Instead of always placing a delivery order, I wanted to make our own pizza at home. I found this quick and easy recipe and it uses Greek yogurt! With one large container of Greek yogurt, I made dough for three crusts. I added some garlic and Italian seasoning to the crust as well. I also found a very simple sauce recipe. We then made it into an Angry Bird Pizza (no picture, unfortunately and I got the idea from Pinterest but the link no longer works).
I may be a SAHM but that doesn't mean my days are full of hanging around the house doing nothing. I still need quick and easy meals to prepare for my family. One dish meals are great. I can work on prepping them a little at a time during the day then pop them in the oven when It's time to eat.
My note for next time is to add more chicken than what it calls for but otherwise it was a yummy one dish meal!
I made this yummy popcorn snack thinking our son would love it, popcorn + marshmallows, 2 of his favorite things. He wouldn't even try it. But I loved it! Need to make more of the topping next time though.
And the final food item for the month was cinnamon bun waffles. I made these on Thanksgiving morning. Super easy waffles using cinnamon buns from the refrigerated food section. They don't come out perfectly shaped but who cares? They have icing!
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| Caprese Pops |
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| Pumpkin Fluff Dip, Pumpkin Muffins, and Pumpkin Brownies |
Having a three year old means eating pizza once a week. Instead of always placing a delivery order, I wanted to make our own pizza at home. I found this quick and easy recipe and it uses Greek yogurt! With one large container of Greek yogurt, I made dough for three crusts. I added some garlic and Italian seasoning to the crust as well. I also found a very simple sauce recipe. We then made it into an Angry Bird Pizza (no picture, unfortunately and I got the idea from Pinterest but the link no longer works).
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| 2 extra crusts for the freezer! Wrapped in plastic wrap first then plastic bag with cooking instructions. The dough is very sticky and after thawing requires extra flour to roll it out. |
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| Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake |
I made this yummy popcorn snack thinking our son would love it, popcorn + marshmallows, 2 of his favorite things. He wouldn't even try it. But I loved it! Need to make more of the topping next time though.
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| Marshmallow Caramel Popcorn |
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| Cinnamon Bun Waffles |
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