Weekly Planner Dry Erase Board - Tutorial

Just looking at my own blog during this first week of the 31 for 21 challenge, 

I realized something was sort of funny:

If you look at my blog and all these posts about Down syndrome,

it seems that it is the only thing I can think and talk about.

The reality?

It's not!

Mostly, we're just enjoying our little girl.

There are moments when we get reminded again that she has 

Down syndrome, but mostly, our life is just 'normal', 

whatever that is...

So to 'prove' that, here is another craft ;)

I needed something besides an ordinary calendar to keep track of my daughter's schedule. 

Since it would be hanging in our kitchen, I wanted it to be pretty, besides functional.

So I came up with this:

It's a dry erase board, that has her weekly schedule already printed on it, 
with things she needs to bring to school, and other things that happen every week.

I made sure I have plenty of room to fill out appointments, etc.

Now, every week, I can just add things that we need to remember that particular week.

Simple, but it works great.

Wanna make your own?

This is what you need:

* Picture frame

* Fabric, slightly larger than the glass in the frame

* Masking tape

* Cardstock (mine was just a standard 8.5x11), smaller than the glass in the frame

*Double sided tape

* A marker to write the schedule, or a computer and printer

1. Create the weekly schedule, by printing it or write it by hand.

Make sure you have enough room to write in extra things.

If you have more kids in school, you could make separate columns for each child, 
or even make a separate one for each child.

2. Take out the backing of the frame. 

3. Put the fabric on top of it, as if you were to frame it. 

4. Put some adhesive or double sided tape on the back of the schedule, and attach it to the center of the fabric.

5. Put the schedule and fabric, together with the backing of the frame, back in the frame.

(So it will be underneath the glass, that way you can write on the glass later.)

6. Fold over the extra fabric and stick it with masking tape to the back.

Not pretty, but who will see the back anyway?!

7. Grab a dry erase marker, and start using your new board!

And since this organizer thing (what do you call these?) is also hanging out in our kitchen, 
I might as well share it in this post, too...

I've had it for quite a while, but recently updated its look.

I gave it a fresh layer of spray paint and used some stencils to create this:

Since the cork board looked so plain, I stenciled part of that, too.

A fun, quick project, hardest thing for me was to wait till the spray paint was dry...

Shared at Blue Cricket Design.

Why I love spray paint...

The past couple months I have had fun using spray paint. Both for things to use inside the house, as well as stuff for the yard. 

What I think is so great is that you can make anything boring suddenly look interesting again by changing its original color. And the best thing is that it's easy and quick!

I just have to be careful not to go overboard and paint everything I come across. 

Just a couple pictures of some things that I painted, unfortunately I don't have any 'before' pictures since I am pretty impulsive once I have a can of spray paint in my hands...

An old tin bucket that I use to keep my garden tools handy got a fresh layer of paint.

I love old window frames, picked this one up at a garage sale over a year ago, and it has been sitting in our garage ever since. I stayed away from the paint during my pregnancy, but not too long afterwards I just HAD to paint it. Now, what do I do with it?

I was thinking it would be neat to let some vines, like ivy, grow through it.

Another awesome idea I found on Craftberry Bush, but not sure if I have the patience to get the materials and do all the work. But doesn't this look pretty?

Picture from Craftberry Bush.

For now it has just been sitting on an old broken bench in our yard, just waiting till I make up my mind...

Another item I found at a garage sale is this flower cart. It was unfinished, and lived in our garage for 2 years! So finally I managed to get it painted. I want to put some flowers in it.

This birdhouse was just an unfinished wooden bird feeder. 

I love how it adds some color to our yard, think it will be especially nice once our yard has lost all its color during the winter months.

Magnetic Pin Holder Bowl

I really like quick crafts: Especially these days with our little newborn in the house it's so nice to be able to create something that doesn't take hours. This project only takes minutes!

 I saw this great idea of a Magnetic Pin Holder Bowl at Sawdust and Paper Scraps. Sandra takes a simple glass bowl and candle holder and creates this cute pin holder, using spray paint, a magnet and some glue. Now, that is a simple project! I had a very ugly magnetic pin holder, so I just took the magnet out of it and used that. I did already have some spray paint on hand. (You can never have too much of that, right?!) Since I didn't have a primer on hand, I skipped that step. Not sure if I'll regret that later, but on my can of spray paint it said it would work on glass, too, and it seems to hold.

Anyway, here is my little copycat project:

Two candle holders from Dollar Tree, spray painted with Krylon spray paint.

Added a magnet, and glued it together, to make this magnetic pin holder.  

Love it!