Awhile back I was going to dehydrate veggies because they were on sale cheap and to my discouragement the pieces were smaller than the holes in my dehydrator trays.  I tried to find screens in the store but we live in a rural area and I could not locate any.  In sheer frustration I was talking to my friend Esther and she said why don’t you just make some.  I was confused of course and asked her with what? She told me she just gets the large sheets of plastic canvas from Hobby Lobby  and lays them on the dehydrator trays.

Lucky for Esther she has an Excalibur and the trays are square.  Me on the other hand I have a snackmaster and my trays are round.  So I thought I would show you just how easy it is to make your own dehydrator screens.

1. First you need to lay the plastic canvas over the top of the dehydrator tray. So that you can cut around the edges.  You will wind up needing to trim slightly just so the canvas fits into the tray but do not do this until you are past having the center hole cut out.
2. Next you are going to trace the center hole so you know where to cut out.  I used a black sharpie marker and it worked pretty well.
3. Now you can remove your screen from the tray.  You will need to cut out the center hole.  Do this by first poking your scissors into the middle of the hole and cutting out towards your tracing line.  Then make your way around the tracing line. 
4. After this you should be able to trim any edges that prevent your screen from laying in the tray flat. 
5. Now I can dehydrate smaller items so they do not fall through the holes in the tray.  Overall the project cost me only $2.00 per tray.  I would have had to pay $4.00 plus shipping to get the screens retail.  Dehydrating this corn is going to be easy and it won’t take up my precious freezer space.  I can toss it in soup or rehydrate and serve as a side dish.

Have you made anything great this week?  Leave a comment I would love to check it out!