Kitchen Memo Board

As a shape, I think the oval kind of gets a raw deal. Triangles and squares and rectangles - now those shapes have power and strength. And circles - they've got movement on their side. But an oval! So sad. You put it upright and it will roll over on its side and stay there. Helpless. Which might be why, when my husband brought home an oval-shaped medicine cabinet from the sale table at Lowe's, I was all, "meh." 

But anything is better than keeping your toothbrushes in a cup in the cabinet underneath the sink in a poorly designed master bathroom in Iowa. Right? But seriously! Who does that? Who designs a bathroom without a proper toothbrush storage area? Probably someone with an oval-shaped brain.

Anyway! When we were packing up to move, the mirror dropped out of the oval medicine cabinet and shattered. So we tossed the medicine cabinet part of it and kept the frame:

The frame itself is kind of pretty. Which makes up for some its general ovalness.

And it still had the mirror backing, so I came up with a plan. 

Look at me, trying to be the boss of my project. This is when I was feeling all cocky:

I glued on some cork board which isn't even thick enough to properly hold pushpins. Is that not the sole purpose of cork board? Why can't I find cork board that wants to fulfill its destiny? It's ridiculous.

And my sweet husband, James, spray painted the frame white for me. 

I could have left it like that, but where's the challenge? 

So I hot glued on some pretty blue fabric:

The blue is pretty, right?

I could have left it like this. But as I said before, I bought the cork board just to waste my money since the cork is too darn skinny to properly hold up its end of the pushpin deal. 

So I came up with a better plan! My Oval would have a meal planning section and a crisscross-ribbon-to-stick-stuff-in section. I would hang it in my kitchen and it would be AWESOME. 

Remember before, how I was all cocky with the tacky glue? That whole three or four minutes of "Take that! I'm totally the boss of this Oval!"?

Well. My Better Plan is when my downfall began. The fabric has a pattern which may or may not be diagonal or horizontal or vertical. I can no longer tell. When I was hot gluing it on, I thought I was laying it out straight, but maybe I wasn't paying attention, or didn't care, or maybe I was drinking wine. It's all a confusing crafting blur. But now that it's attached, the pattern is kind of diagonal. 

Combine that with the fact that if I try to stand The Oval upright, it will roll over on its sad little side. How can I possibly make the yellow ribbon that is the divider for my meal planning section look level in this situation? One second it looks level, and the next second it looks completely slanted. And, yes! I even used an actual level! In the end, I crossed my fingers, hoped for the best, and glued with abandon. And it worked (I think)! Suck it Oval!

I got these cute little wooden alphabet letters to represent the days of the week and I tied them onto some twine. It was going along nicely.

But then I did the crisscross ribbon section. I laid out the ribbons and then adjusted them to make the diamond shapes bigger. And then adjusted them again to make them smaller. And then again to make them who knows what. 

And then I had to walk away because The Oval was winning. There must be an easier way! Finally I came up with an acceptable grid. I measured out the individual ribbon areas with a piece of paper to make sure they were consistent. I imagine, if you were using a REAL shape (that's right - I said it) like a rectangle or square, you could just measure and mark and glue and then skip on down your flower and butterfly path of life. Stupid Oval.

Here's what the back looked like before I trimmed all the ribbon:

Back to the meal planning section!

This next step took some time to figure out. But only because I wasn't sure how I wanted to attach my meal planning papers. Wooden clothespins? Mini clothespins? Clothespins mod podged with fancy paper? Bull clips? I was driving myself crazy. I was worried the clip on / clip off process might cause some wear and tear on the fabric. And I knew the weekly meal planning display needed to be a simple task or this whole Oval battle would just be a waste of my time.

In the end I cut the tops off the 2" x 3" zip top bags that you can get at your local craft store. I glue-gunned them onto the blue and tan paper. Then I slid a coordinating piece of scrapbook paper into each one. That way you can't see the glue on the back of the bag. And it's pretty! 

I pre-cut a bunch of white cardstock. Each week, when I do my planning, I can write our meals on the papers and slide them in. Easy peasy mac n cheesy! I also made two bottom slots for extras like desserts or snacks I want to make. 

I tied little pieces of twine onto our initials and glue-gunned them on. This is my kids' favorite part of the board. It's so sweet - anything that helps bond us as a family, even little wooden alphabet tiles on a kitchen memo board, means so much them!

And then I added some bright yellow flowers from the Dollar Tree that I embellished with pearl centers. I mostly just stuck the alphabet tiles and flowers wherever I messed up with the glue gunning and ribbon crossing. I'm pretty sure that is why embellishments were invented.

TA DA! 

I love how happy and bright it is!

Good game, Oval. Good game.