My first craft!

I am really excited to share with you all my first craft as a married person! To start off, I got the idea off of Pinterest, of course. I am always looking through my "good ideas" board for a new craft to do more specifically a craft that doesn't involve too many things, isn't difficult and is practical for our home. A few weeks ago I came across this:

And clicked on the link: http://www.cgdickson.com/2012/01/08/the-ultimate-menu-board-2/

And decided to make a menu board for our kitchen!

Austin though that would be a good idea as well and he reminded me that I have a magnetic board that I am currently not using in the closet. It was perfect because it was a simple craft and could be easily displayed in our home! It is also very customizable and you can create one in so many different ways.

As for me, I started with my magnetic board. I already had some wooden clothespins from our wedding decorations and definitely grabbed those to use for this project. I did my best to follow the directions but I also decided to do things my own way. I stopped by Michael's one very rainy day after work and picked up a big booklet of pretty scrapbook paper (it was usually $19.99 and I got it for $7.99!), kraft cardstock and magnetic tape.

Here are all of the things I used: my laptop, Sharpie fine point pen, magnetic tape, clear packaging tape, scissors, wooden clothespins, kraft paper, scrapbook paper, a ruler, glue and my recipe book

I made this recipe book at my last Young Women's activity before I turned 18. Haven't filled it with much but I hope to learn more recipes!

So the first thing I did was make my "Menu." I just wrote it by hand on some scrapbook paper and wrote it using my "fake calligraphy" techniques :) I also "laminated" it with clear packaging tape and let me tell you, it is such an awesome, easy, cheap alternative to laminating small things! Then I stuck two small pieces of magnetic tape on each side.

Next, I covered my wooden clothespins with a strip of a variety of scrapbook paper and glued them on. I then cut strips of my magnetic tape and stuck them onto the backs of the clothespins. I then wrote the days of the week in fake calligraphy on little squares and "laminated" them. Then I glued the letters onto the right end of the clothespin with basic school glue (34 cents at Wal-Mart).

I typed up all of the different meals we would have for dinner on Microsoft Word and used a pretty font called "Just The Way You Are" which I downloaded for free from dafont.com (I fell in love with fonts and finding cool ones on this website when i took Visual Media at BYU-Idaho).

These are just a few of the recipes we currently make on a weekly basis. I definitely want to go back to this document and add more recipes once we discover more that we enjoy! I also typed the recipes out on the landscape layout and with three columns so I could fit more to a page. It also helps to right-align the text so that there is space on the left for the clothespin to pin them on the magnetic board.

After I printed them, I cut them out carefully and made sure that they were roughly the same size. Then I "laminated" each meal card.

THAT'S IT! I'm not even kidding. You can seriously go above and beyond what I did but this is as simple as it gets. One last thing is that I bought a small wooden box (made out of really thin wood like balsa) from Michael's to store all of the meal cards that are not being used. I stuck a strip of magnetic tape on it and it sticks right onto the board!

Here is the final product:

Check out other menu board designs at these websites below:

http://thethinkingcloset.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/the-menu-planner-to-rule-them-all/

http://www.cgdickson.com/2012/01/08/the-ultimate-menu-board-2/

http://sarahnielsen.com/2011/01/tutorial-dinner-menu-board/

http://monas3rd.blogspot.com/2011/09/super-saturday-crafts_1968.html

http://simplykellyb.blogspot.com/2011/09/menu-board-update.html

http://www.theidearoom.net/2009/09/weekly-menu-planner.html

http://www.agirlandagluegun.com/2010/04/whats-for-dinner.html

http://whipperberry.com/2010/11/tutorial-chalkboard-menu.html

love day

This Valentine's Day was extra special. I got to celebrate this holiday with my husband! Last year, we had only been dating for not even two weeks when Valentine's Day came around. Story time:

February 14, 2012:
It was a Tuesday. I remember because we had devotional that day and i wore my favorite red skirt and Austin looked super handsome in his light purple collared shirt. I also remember that it was super windy that day (like there is never a day when it ISN'T windy). I went to the temple every Tuesday morning and the wind (or snow) never stopped me from walking there! We did some secret santa-type things for Student Support council and I made some brownies for my person. I took a different route that morning to stop by Nauvoo to drop them off. The temple was wonderful as usual. Anyways, Austin and I never really talked about doing anything on Valentine's Day and since we were still getting to know each other, I assumed that he was one of those types who didn't care for the holiday. We didn't even talk on Valentine's Day until right before devotional to find each other. I was kind of bummed since it would be fun to celebrate since we were in this new relationship but I didn't care too much. All day, when we were together, people would ask us what our plans were for the evening. it was super awkward for us to answer their questions! Well, at least for me. I didn't really know what to say.

Anyways, we went to our respective classes, went to devotional together, said happy valentine's day to each other and went on with life like usual. After my classes were over, I went to the library to spend a ridiculous amount of time in the media lab to work on a visual media project. I was there for quite a few hours when all of a sudden I get a text from Austin. He asks where I am (very specifically, might I add) and what I am up to. A few minutes later, Austin walks through the door and sits patiently with me while I work on my project (for quite a bit of time). I FINALLY finish and Austin offers to walk me to my apartment from the library. I was SUPER confused because he also told me he walked to the library from his apartment. I just couldn't believe it because he has a car AND a bike. And it was way too cold to walk that far.

Well, he walks me to my apartment and I just keep asking him questions like an idiot because I was genuinely confused. We get to the door of my apartment and as it opens, I see a nice little set up on the kitchen table with sparkling cider (which I remember we bought together the weekend before), napkins cut out in the shape of hearts and a pot of something delicious. Austin then exclaimed, "Surprise! Happy Valentine's Day!" I was SO SURPRISED! It was so nice though. I am quite the gullible girl. Our dinner set up looked like this (except this is after we ate):

happy valentine's day to us!

We enjoyed a delicious meal of Cajun Chicken (one of our all time favorites from Eating For Life by Bill Phillips). It was really neat because I had also bought him a mud flap (for his bike) a week earlier and was able to give it to him as a gift. He loved it! (He loves practical gifts.) He also made me a cute valentine which looked like this:

I actually gave Austin his valentine the next day during our class we had together in the morning which (obviously) looked like this:

Anyways, flash forward to THIS Valentine's Day, a year later. It was wonderful since we celebrated it as a married couple. I was DYING to do some super fun Pinterest stuff since I have a whole board dedicated to love day. Sadly, I was just so busy with my new job that I couldn't do much. I did manage to put up some decorations from our wedding that went really well with the holiday (ie. some handing letters that spell LOVE and pictures of us hung up with clothespins and twine).

We woke up early, as usual, to get ready for work. I stayed in bed a little longer and while Austin was in the shower, I snuck over to the kitchen to cook him breakfast. I made eggs in a basket except it was heart shaped! We also had some red MiO and some strawberries. Austin actually caught me in the act of making breakfast but it still surprised him. When it was time for Austin to leave for work, I sent him off with some Reese's (which he loves!).

After he left, I started to make the dessert we would have later that night. I had to hurry too because I had to get ready for work myself! Luckily I was able to prepare the rest of the dessert later and still have it be a fun surprise.

We went to work as usual except today I wore my favorite red pants (duh, it was Valentine's Day). I was anxious to get home to see Austin. We had decided earlier to go out to dinner and Austin decided on this small restaurant we saw before in downtown St. Charles near this other restaurant that we loved.  It was called Lewis & Clark's (of course since we are in the Midwest). It was pretty delicious. Austin ordered pesto chicken and I ordered eggplant parmesan. We went halfsies on our meals so we got to try both. I actually ended up liking the chicken more and vice versa with Austin! Kinda funny.

Lewis & Clark's in downtown St. Charles

eggplant parmesan...mmm...

Anyways, we got home and enjoyed my delicious dessert. It consisted of 2 small corningware dishes, strawberry cake slices in the shape of hearts, sliced strawberries, chocolate pudding and whipped cream all layered on top of each other. It turned out really good! Here is what it looked like:

Well, I hope all of you had an enjoyable Valentine's Day! I sure did and I am looking forward to many many more with this handsome man:

(he is so cute in this picture!)