Menu Boards

This fall Kim, Jessica and I saw these super cute menu boards at the Holly Fair. The Holly Fair is our area's version of a craft/sales boutique. I usually go most years and look around, but rarely buy anything because I usually think I can make the stuff I like myself. Most years I don't follow through on. I was really struggling with ideas for what to buy my best friends for Christmas, then I remembered the menu boards and thought I would try them. I bought all of the stuff and was ready to make them, but then I started to stress over choosing the best paper that would meet their personalities. So I told my friends about the gift and offered to make it for them, or if they wanted we could get together and make them together. I'm so glad they choose the get together. Not that the boards are that hard to make, but just because I love getting together with them.

We were going to make them a few days before Christmas, but the weather turned nasty and I ended up having to spend a night at Jessica's because Josh was pretty sure I'd never make it home. So that meant all of the stuff we needed was at home and we had to cancel. But last night we were able to get together. It was so much fun.

We all thought it was pretty cool that we all had the same basics, and yet each board is different. I brought SEVERAL Close to My Heart paper packets to choose paper from and then my 8 Cricut cartridges. We each choose different paper and different fonts. I was the only one to choose brown vinyl. Jessica started with some super CUTE damask paper, but it was too dark so she traded out for something else. She is hoping to find new damask paper that isn't so dark so she can get it to better match her kitchen. I was going to use the cowboy themed paper from the Sarsaparilla paper kit, but I grabbed the wrong package and it didn't have enough paper in it. So I choose something else. I'm still deciding if I want to change it out or not. The kit I love is a little dark and I'm not sure if it will work or not. I'll experiment with it one of these days.

The boards are pretty simple to put together. We started with some pictures frames, I had brought 11x17 frames. We disassembled the frames and cleaned the glass. We later learned that cleaning the glass first is pointless, because you will have to clean it later. After choosing our paper (we needed 2 matching sheets of 12x12 paper) we had to cut them to size and try to make the seam disappear. The board I made last week was so much easier to line up because there wasn't so much to the design. I had to retape my paper 3 times before the lines matched up perfectly.

Then we each choose our fonts and cut the words out on vinyl using my Cricut. I've had my Cricut for YEARS, but I don't use it often so it was fun to learn how to do vinyl. The one thing I wish I had taken the time to figure out was how to flip the letters so they printed backwards. Then we could have put them on the underside of the glass instead of the top. I have my Cricut book found and I will be reading up on it this weekend. On the board I made last week I think I went with 1-1/2 inches on the words, but these boards were a little bigger so we did 2 inches. After cutting the vinyl we put it on the transfer paper, lined it up on the glass and applied it. Then we cleaned the glass again and put the picture frames back together. They turned out so cute!

 Jessica's Menu

 Randi's Menu

 Kim's Menu

 My Menu