To make your meal planner, you will need the following (links are affiliate links.):
—2 sheets of card stock (one plain, one with a pattern)
—1 sheet of paper for printing meal ideas (I used vellum.)
—7 bottle caps (CLICK HERE to buy from Amazon)
—11 small, but strong magnets (CLICK HERE to buy from Amazon)
—word sheet below (copy and paste into a Word document to print)
—scissors and glue (I used craft glue for the pocket and E6000 for the magnets)
Use the patterned card stock as the background. Cut out What's for Dinner and glue it to a rectangle of the plain card stock. It should be slightly larger than the What's for Dinner label. Make a pocket from plain card stock by cutting out a square with tabs on three sides. Fold the tabs under and glue them to the background. Glue Menu Items label to the pocket.
Cut out and glue each day of the week to the center of a bottle cap.
Glue a magnet to the back of each bottle cap.
Attach your meal planner to a magnetic surface, like the side of a refrigerator. Use a magnet in each corner. To hide the magnets, cut out and glue on a circle of the patterned paper.
This will make the magnets less noticeable. (Technically, you don't need magnets in the corners, since the bottle cap magnets will hold it in place, but I think they are nice to have to keep the corners flat against the surface.)
Print out the recipes you typically cook and cut them into strips. Place them in the Menu Items pocket. I use very general menu items and I get more specific when making my grocery list. For example, if I choose Calzone, I will later determine what kind of calzone I want to make and the ingredients I'll need. Some of my menu items include Pasta Dish, Meal Salad, Enchiladas, Appetizer and Salad, and Tacos. You can see more of my meal items on the photo of the completed meal planner below.
Be sure to include menu items, such as New Recipe, Eating Out, or Take Out.
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