The Cute Dollar Tree DIY You'll Love Having In The Kitchen If You're A Meal Planner

Staying on top of daily responsibilities can feel like a juggling act, especially if you wear a lot of hats. If you find yourself constantly forgetting what you were planning on making for dinner, perhaps a visual reminder is exactly what you need to stay more organized. Fortunately, Dollar Tree has all that you need for a simple DIY that will help you map out your meals for the week. TikTok creator @bournesouthern shows how she uses three items from Dollar Tree to create an adorable, reusable framed menu that can be easily installed anywhere in the house. It could even become part of your DIY household command center. The best part? It will take only a couple minutes to complete. 

In order to create your own wipeable dinner menu board, you'll need to purchase an 8x10-inch plastic picture frame, some letter stickers in your color of your choice, and some dry erase markers – each of these items will cost $1.25 at Dollar Tree. Once you get your supplies home, remove the back of the photo frame and flip the paper in the frame around so that the white blank side will show. Then, select the letters to spell the word "menu" and position them at the top of the blank paper. Reinsert the paper into the frame, replace the back, and use your dry erase markers to write the days of the week and corresponding meals for each day on the clear plastic. By creating this DIY, you'll help yourself stay more on top of your meal planning and add a little extra cuteness to your culinary space.

While it cannot be denied that the menu board in the TikTok video is charming, perhaps you would like to tweak it a bit to make it better reflect your design scheme. Fortunately, there are endless ways to do so, beginning with the picture frame itself. Dollar Tree might not always have a wide selection of colors for their picture frames, but it's nothing that a can of spray paint cannot fix. Simply remove the plastic from the front as well as the back of the frame, then prep your frame for spray painting by putting it on some cardboard paper in a well-ventilated space (remember to put your can of spray paint in hot water before painting for the best coverage). Spray paint the frame whatever shade you desire and allow it to dry before reassembling the frame's components.

In lieu of using plain white paper for your menu background, you can opt for a colored cardstock (you can use the plain paper from the frame as a template to ensure a perfect fit) that better compliments your new frame hue. You can also use smaller alphabet stickers from Dollar Tree to spell out the days, which can result in a more polished finished product. 

While this could be placed on a countertop, many kitchens are short on counter space. To make the most of your small kitchen, you can purchase some adhesive-backed magnet strips, which can be attached along the back of the frame. This will allow you to place it on the refrigerator where it will be easy to reach but never in the way.