Weekly Meal Planning Board using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge

To help make weekly dinners an easier task I decided to make a Meal Planning Board. I browsed around pinterest to get some ideas and then came up with my own. It was fun to make... took a little while but I think it will be so worth it.

I used a canvas that I already had (bought a multi pack of 8" x 10" at Joann's a while ago) and covered it with some green paper to go with our kitchen. I just adhered it right to the board. Then grabbed 7 clothes pins and cut strips of damask paper to fit perfectly over the tops of them. I used my handy dandy ATG (adhesive tape gun) and adhered the paper to the clothes pins. I then used my FAVORITE Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge from Close To My Heart and cut seven 1" black circles and seven 3/4" white circles and adhered those together. I used the cartridge to also cut the days of the week also (M, T, W, T, F, S & S). I realize most people would have done them Sunday through Monday but I like to plan it out with my week starting Monday after the weekend is over so that is why I did M through S. =)

Once I had the clothes pins all set I adhered them directly to the canvas using my ATG (adhesive tape gun) again. Love that thing! Next up I cut the damask bag to hold additional meal tags. I believe I cut it at 3 1/2"... it's the litte purse bag with handles, only I cut off the handles since I was using it for a different purpose. I then adhered that to the bottom, right side of the canvas. On the bottom left I cut the top note rectangular shape in black (I think it was 2 3/4") and then again in white (I think 2 1/2") and stamped "What's for Dinner?" using the Close To My Heart Friendship Alphabet Small stamp set. I adhered that together and then to the canvas.

Now my board was set and ready for the meal tags. I created a word doc with 2 columns, right aligned (since clothes pin holds them on left side) and typed out our favorite meals. Then I searched for a bunch of fabulous crockpot meals to add to the meal list. I love using my crockpot and know it will make things so much easier with a busy summer with the kids and baby Londyn's arrival in August. I'm really into the freezer meals where you do all the prep work ahead of time, put them in freezer bags and the day of you just plop it right into the crockpot. Super big timesaver and the family all seems to really enjoy those ones. So once I had about 20-25 meals planned out I printed the meal list out on white 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock (oh ya.. I added a few Out to Dinner ones too!), cut them to all be equal size, matted them on black cardstock and viola. I now have a new system for my kitchen that I hope is going to work out great. I picked out 7 meals for next week and plan to get them all prepped and ready on Monday (except the quick, day of meals) then have a nice assortment of additional meals in the little holder for the following weeks. I also copied and pasted the recipes into a word doc, made it 2 column and printed those on white cardstock too. This way I can easily refer to it when prepping my meals and not have to keep looking them up online.

Hope you like it! My hubby is excited about it and is looking forward to all the new meals I have planned to make. =)

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Mandy Leahy, Close To My Heart Independent Consultant/Senior Director