Clean and Tidy - September/October



I've been wanting to mount some cork board inside my kitchen cabinet doors for a while now, after seeing the idea here at Maillardville Manor:

  



http://www.maillardvillemanor.com/2011/07/organized-office-and-paperwork.html

Last November I joined a planning committee at my church to help plan get togethers for our ladies group. Along with this came new to-do lists. I need my to-do lists to be right where I can see them and I found I was using my counter for all of my papers and lists until I discovered that sticky notes on the front of the cabinet doors worked better. But I knew I didn't want this couldn't be the permanent solution. I thought cork boards would be the perfect solution for my to-lists. I've more recently taken on a part time job at the church overseeing the children's ministry. Knowing this will come with more to-do lists, it became even more important to me to find a solution to my "problem".

After looking around for some cork board and finally finding some, (I'm amazed at how hard it was to find. I found some at Michaels, which for me is a 40 minute drive. I had hoped to find some much closer to home.) I bought extra strength velcro from Canadian Tire and used the velcro to mount the cork inside my cupboards. My thought was that I could pull the cork boards out of the cupboard and lay them on the counter when I needed them and tuck them away when they weren't in use. Unfortunately the velcro (Which worked incredibly well for attaching labels to my storage bins.) wouldn't adhere to the back of the cork or the inside of the cupboard doors. So I was back to square one.

This is when I remembered a few great DIY ideas I saw on Pinterest I was also wanting to try out. I thought these would also come in handy in my kitchen:




I loved this idea for remembering the things we do week after week: dance class, skating, pizza day, even Gym so the girls remember not to wear a skirt or jeans.

 http://fey-next2heaven.blogspot.com/2011/09/our-launch-pad-new-weekly-calendar.html




I also loved this idea for all of our monthly plans, things that aren't a part of our weekly schedule.

 

http://pinterest.com/pin/220631614/





This idea I just fell in love with right away. For some reason it makes the thought of meal planning more fun for me.

  

http://blog.fancifulframes.com/

So now I had three DIY projects involving frames I wanted to do and I really wanted a way to keep my to-do lists (And anything else needing prompt attention: permission slips, bills, b-day party invites, etc.) under control. This is when I realized I could frame the cork, make the other three frames and mount them all on the wall in my kitchen...gallery style! 

Here's the wall I decided to mount it on:

I already had a frame from Walmart and I tried fitting the cork in there. It was perfect because it was deep enough to fit two layers of cork and the backing still went back on. It was a pretty frame in an off-white, but I really love my white, so when I picked up the rest of the frames I needed I gave them each a light coat of glossy white spray paint. I cut scrapping paper to size and used that as the back ground for the calender, weekly schedule and menu plan. I used a ruler and pencil and eraser working until I got the exact dimensions I wanted. I used the ruler to go over them with a black sharpie.

They turned out like this:








I didn't want to lose the verse I had posted on the wall. It was printed out on just a regular piece of printer paper before. Again I used scrapping paper and framed it, I love how it turned out. :)

 

The next step was mounting the frames. Here's how I did it:




I lay the frame upside down on some old wrapping paper and traced the frame with a pencil and then cut the shape out. I did this with each one.

 


Next I placed the matching paper cut-out on top of the frame and lined it up on all sides. Then I marked exactly where the screw would need to go.

 




Then I taped them on the wall exactly where I wanted them to go, using the markings (and a level when there was more than one scre needed) as a guide for drilling the necessary holes. My little man asked to be in on this one. :)

 

And that was that! Here's a picture of the final result. What do you think?