How to make your own Pantry Play Food

September 24, 2012

How to make your own Pantry Play Food

This past week we celebrated my sweet girl's birthday. As the time approached closer I had lots of thoughts about what I wanted to make her and what gifts we wanted to give this sweet thing for her birthday.

As I was brainstorming I knew mostly I wanted to get her play kitchen in order. We were given these darling Pottery Barn play kitchen sets almost a year before she was even born. All this time they've been hiding in storage, waiting for her to get old enough to play with them. As her birthday approached we knew it was time to bust these out and fill them with fun things.

We ended up purchasing pots and pans and play food from Melissa & Doug, but I wanted to make a few more things for her pantry.

So I give you:

MATERIALS:

1. 4 foot wood cut into 6 equal pieces. (I used a solid piece of aspen cut 8" x 4")

2. Paint

3. Mod Podge

4. Clear Spray Paint.

STEP ONE: Cut your wood.

For this project I first started at Hobby Lobby, then JoAnns looking for nice finished wood that I could paint. I came home from both stores empty-handed. Then I thought, "hmm, perhaps I better just get my own wood and sand it." This thought process brought me to Menards (think Home Depot) where I bought a solid 4' block of Aspen wood. Then I brought it around to the guys out back and asked them to cut it for me every 8 inches. They obliged.

STEP TWO: Sand the ends of the wood, thoroughly.

I bought this nifty sand sponge. I thought it worked pretty well, but by the end it was all used up.

STEP THREE: Draw out your designs.

Of course you can do whatever you want for your pantry items. I wanted to do fun foods that my kids like.

STEP FOUR: Paint all sides of the wood, except the front (where the design will be).

STEP FIVE: Draw your design on the dried painted wood with a pencil.

STEP SIX: Paint your design.

STEP SEVEN: Once dry, outline everything with an extra fine-tip permanent marker.

STEP EIGHT: Once you've painted and outlined each block, cover with one coat of Mod Podge.

I have a little trouble with my mod podge projects because I purchased the gloss kind (not matte) and it makes all my projects want to stick to each other. So once I was all done, and everything was dried I figured I'd better cover it with some clear spray paint.