Framed and Fabric Lined Dry Erase Board

I woke up to these today. They are more of the best darn cupcakes ever. And the best darn ramekin cake ever. I can't wait to eat that when no one is around to snag any from me. That is all that is left from a dozen cupcakes made yesterday at 1:30. Don't worry. I shared. I shared a few with a friend of mine who just had a baby a week ago. She shared one with her little girl (not the new baby) and her fiancee. She is a lot nicer than I am.  Then she let me hold that cute little baby boy of hers for two and a half hours! He squeaked, he slept, he ate, he burped, and he soiled his pants. That is when I handed him straight over to his daddy.

Back to this morning. Since I wanted a cupcake but knew that it was not a suitable breakfast choice for the girls, I decided to make pancakes. I know, I know. Pancakes again. Well, to be fair, we haven't had pancakes in like, over a week. That is a record for us. We haven't had them since St. Patrick's Day to be precise.

We had some flowers. It is technically spring, even though Mother Nature apparently didn't get that memo. No complaints here though. We don't have snow in my neck of the woods.

This here is a failed attempt at Elmo. I figure it is only fair to show you what turns works and what doesn't. Elmo was a flop. I can draw a mean Elmo on paper, but not with pancake batter. FLOP!

Yesterday, Avery asked for a kitty. We are not really big kitty people here. And when I say we, in this instance I mean Eric. He is not a fan. So I decided to draw her one instead. She was tickled.

Then, later in the morning, the girls and I went to Wal-Mart. I avoid the joint as much as I can on weekends, but we went with my Mom and I wanted to get a few specific things.

We needed glitter and spray Mod Podge for a super awesome project we are doing tomorrow. It's going to be amazing and epic.

I also needed this stuff:

a poster picture frame, a piece of fabric, and glue sticks. You will also need a hot glue gun if you don't have one.

You will also need something to drink. My drink of choice today, and everyday, is an ice cold Mt. Dew in a can. I love this delicious fluorescent yellow nectar of the gods.

Sorry. We will get a room.

This is what you are going to make:

It is a framed and fabric lined dry erase board. My fabric is white with white flowers. You can't see those flowers though, even if you look really close. I chose a white background so any color marker would show up, not just black.

First, take your frame apart. Remove the film that is on the plastic. Next, take out the sheet of paper inside the frame, place it upside down on the back side of your fabric. Using a glue gun, go around the sheet, gluing the fabric on.

Put the fabric side against the plastic, put the back on, and turn it around. And if you are like me, you will have to open it back up again to remove the half dozen dog hairs that stuck to the inside of the plastic and the fabric.

Look at him lay there with his stuffed kitty. He stole that from Kendall who stole it from Avery. He carries that thing everywhere. When he takes it outside, I imagine he is sending a message to any stray cats. We had a stray cat come in our yard last summer. Koda chased it up a tree and it never came back. I keep Koda around for only a few reasons. One is to chase critters of any kind that happen to enter my backyard. The other is to put the fear of God into any intruder. He is good at that. We didn't get mail delivered one fall for an entire month because our mailman thought he was going to jump out of a two inch open screened in window and eat him. His bark is brutal. Anyway.

It is that simple. Doesn't that look way better than a standard dry erase board? I think so.

I hung mine low in my kitchen so the girls can color on it whenever they want, but especially when I am trying to make dinner.

I did a test run while the girls were napping to make sure the markers would erase. And low and behold, they do. I didn't even have to use much elbow grease. A plain towel rubbed the marker off with little effort.

This might be one of my favorite projects to date. It took ten minutes to make. It cost less than $20. I got my frame on sale at Wal-Mart for $12. I bought a pre-cut fabric square for $1.80 in Wal-Mart's craft/sewing department. The markers were $6.00.

I know it would cost less to buy a traditional dry erase board, but they are definitely not as cute.

I came across an awesome blog the other day entitled makeit-loveit.com. I came across an idea for this type of dry erase board from her site. Check it out. There are a lot of awesome, easy projects on there. I will definitely be trying more for sure.