Kid friendly to-do list! (Only not a list)

In my home a traditional chore chart just does not work. My kids ages are too spread out for most versions of the chore chart to work for us. The oldest is 17 and therefore I do not remind him to Brush his teeth, or Comb his hair very often. And there hasn't been a day in years when I have had to remind him to get dressed, LOL! Of course there is a small amount of reminding going on, on the set chores that he has, garbage and feed the horse. But for the most part he is pretty self sufficient. The little guy is 17 months old and while soon I will needing to star chart of something for his "potty training progress" he doesn't really have much of a to-do list yet. The eight year old however, well he needs lots of reminders, over and over and over and well you get the idea! He is the sweetest little boy in the world, however, he would happily stay in his pajamas all day with nary a thought as to whether or not the cat has been fed. or if the hampster is dying of thirst, or even if he, himself has eaten breakfast. He has the attention span of a gnat and while I dearly love him I do not love telling him over and over and over again the things he needs to do every morning and every evening. Traditional charts are fine and I know they work well for most kids, plus they would have been simpler to  make. (Even though my version wasn't very hard.) But I like mine better for the following reasons:

1. It is just plain ol' more fun to drop the sticks into the "Done" can versus checking them off a chart!

2. The pictures reenforce what he is supposed to be doing, and he knows what to do even if his 'blossoming but not quite great' reading skills can't make out the words.

3. Yellow circles means morning to-do's and blue means nighttime to-do's. Easy to remember what to do when!

4. Every morning he gets a fresh start, so if the previous day wasn't perfect than he doesn't get reminded of those oops the rest of the week.

5. It is a pretty accent for the bookcase, versus a chart I would want to keep somewhere out of sight and therefore out of mind!

6. I can edit this at any time, either by adding or removing tasks - jobs that need to be done. I really love this feature. I also cut out extra cardstock circles so I won't have to go digging around for the right color when I need them.  And I just store them in one of the cans!

6. So simple to make!

 Step 1 is gathering your supplies of course! Let's see, I used a paper trimmer, hot glue gun, black spray paint, brown spray paint,  Large Wooden Craft Sticks, a black Sharpie, 2 empty aluminum cans, 10 of the aluminum can tops, cardstock for the colored circles and to print my chore circles on, Fancy Pantz Patterned Paper, Fancy Pantz Rub-Ons,  Matching Fancy Pantz Ribbon.

First I spray painted the top and bottom rim of the cans black, and I spray painted the large wooden craft sticks brown.

Then I cut my paper just wide enought to fit between the rims, applied some rub-ons and added the words, To-Do to one and All Done to the other.

Using my computer and free graphics I made up 6 morning reminders, Brush Teeth, Eat Breakfast, Get Dressed, Read for 15 minutes, Handwriting for 10 minutes, and Feed Cats. I snuck a couple of school related tasks that he does daily in there as well. That way he gets started schooling even if Mom is busy with the baby or something else in the morning.

I also made up 5 Nighttime Reminders, Brush Teeth, Read for 15 minutes, Pajamas, Feed Cats, and Feed Jack Jack (his hampster). He now knows that he has to start all this by 9:00 pm and then he goes to bed. So nice to not be the one doing the nagging anymore, I let the cans do that!

I just cut those out in a circle, glued them to either yellow or blue paper and then glued two corresponding circles together with the large craft stick sandwiched in between.

Glued the ribbon around the can using hotglue.

Oh yeah and you might be wondering what I used the aluminum can tops for, well I found out my sticks didn't stand up tall enough to look right so I glued 5 of them together and dropped them into the inside of each can. Makes my sticks stand up taller and look nicer!

And I was "All Done"

Making a Full Recovery!

And no, I am not talking about recovering a piece of furniture! LOL!

This Sunday morning landed me straight into the ER with uncontrollable pain in my throat. I truly thought I might die if I had to eat, drink, or breathe. That breathing thing, well, turns out it is kind of important. The doctor looked me over and said well nothing looks too bad but your blood pressure is pretty elevated so something must be wrong. It is then that my husband looked at him and with a straight face said "Find something wrong with her and fix it", "before it kills me!" Thanks honey! So the doctor did a strep test and yep it was positive! Now here is the thing, he gave me two pain pills, and as I laid there waiting for the test to come back, they did NOTHING, nothing to ease the pain at all. So then he gave me a anti-flamatory shot and still it did very little to ease the pain. But eventually it started to ease and I got to go home, I spent all day laying on the couch and taking my pills, sleeping, eating popsicles, taking some more pills, the pain was unbearable. This morning when my hubby woke up I was in the fetal position on the couch and crying. He called the doctor back and told him that while noone knows why this is hurting me so badly I was not going to make it through the day without some more pain medicine. (He only gave me enough for one day.) So to make a long story a little shorter this time, the kind Doctor told me to take Motrin with the new pain meds and wahlah I feel like I just might live!

Of course, the pain medicine makes me nauseated and sleepy and itchy,:

Friday: Getting sick, had too much other TEENAGER stress to deal with to care much
Saturday: Knew I had something wrong with my throat but thought I would deal
Sunday: Headed to the ER at 7:00 am, slept most of the day
Monday: Better, and will be crafting again soon! I have not crafted anything in days and the only thing in this house that I have fluffed happens to be my pillows!

So I hope that eventually soon I will be back to my normal self again soon. I have missed bloggy land so very much!

Is it normal to have strep hurt this badly? I am not a fan of pain but I usually handle it pretty well.

Wine Rack Transformation!

While thrifting last week I stumbled upon this little wine rack at our GoodWill Store. This is after his little makeover.

This is before....while he was still a lovely shade of orange wood.

Very simple transformation. A can of black matte spray paint (the cheap stuff from Wal-Mart, sprayed the whole thing, and then sanded and sanded. I actually sanded most of the spray paint off, well about half. Then I used a wet paper towel to rub red craft paint all over it. And wiped it back off. Just your basic distressing. It was fun, and easy and just the thing to sit on top of my wine rack.

My husband's comment about it made me LOL. He said "It looks like something you would see on The Black Pearl.  I am not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not! ;0)

My Little Prettied Up Planner!

This is my little planner that I bought from the dollar store back in January. It is so boring looking!

Today I found these little pretties at the Scrapbook Store.

And in two minutes I have this! No, seriously it took me two minutes!

And while I was procrastinating picking up I made these.

This one is my favorite, just used some big black letter stickers for the U and the R.

This one is very pretty with shimmery pink cardstock.

This one is for a friend who is going through a rough time.

Thanks for looking!

Kelly

And the Winner Is............

Comment #2

Jenn @ South of Sheridan said...



And I'm already following you - I'll post your giveaway on my blog side column too, in hopes you get more followers! ;D

Hooray! And thank you Jen for posting on your blog about the giveaway. I am so excited that we passed 10 and then 20 followers!

So here is the fun part - the Rice Pad Bag and Rice Pad Neck Pillow are available in the following color choices. So contact me with your choice and I will get these out to you!

So Lucky To Have Each Other!

Just a little reminder..........Rice Pad Bag Giveaway is tommorow! So if you have not left a comment here then you need to! Random.org will be picking a number in about 24 hours so get over there and enter. And if you are a follower make sure that you leave two comments so that you have two chances to win. Oh and I am so excited!  MakeItSparklyMama has reached 20 followers so that means that the giveaway will include both a Rice Pad Bag Heating Pad and A Rice Pad Bag Neck Warmer!

Now for the project I want to show you!

Yes, Indeed we are lucky to have each other! I am so blessed by my Family! And here is a little craft idea to showcase just that! My Mom was getting ready to burn these scrap 2x4's when she thought "Hey I bet Kelly could use those!", and she gave them to me, and I am so glad! They are pretty self explanatory but I will share with you how I did the lettering. First up I made a pattern on the computer. Sometimes it can be tricky to get a letter to print out just the way you want it, for instance I wanted my letters to take up almost the whole block, but if they were long enough than they were too wide.  Or vice versa. But I have a little trick to share,...

First Up: Open a Microsoft Publisher Blank Document

*** Insert A Text Box (It doesn't matter what size at this point)
***Type Your Letter for example I typed L (make it fit the box as best as you can)
***Right Click on the text box and "Save As Picture"
***Delete Text Box
***Click Insert, Picture, From File, then click on the name of the text box you just saved as a picture
***You can now crop your letter so that there is very little text box around it
***This will enable you to size your letter appropriately for your project, without having tons of white space around it.
***Now you can size your letter, stretching it any  way you want.

This tip really does make a difference when you want to stretch letters out, to be tall and skinny or short and wide.

I printed my letters and saying out and then used carbon paper to transfer them over. The only thing I can say is use tape. Especially if your letters are a tight fit! I traced my letters out not being too careful. I wanted my project to have a freehanded look but I didn't want to actually freehand it! After the letters were traced, I thinned some green paint with a little water and just filled in the letters. So easy! I gave them 2 coats. You will notice that my letters look old, like maybe I just chopped up an old fence post and wrote out my letters. This is how I do that look, and I know there are gobs of posts about this in blogland and on the internet but my way is a little diferent. I am too lazy to use stain. I don't like drying time I don't like worrying about things being perfect so I use Old English furniture polish. I just sanded the edges and swiped the blocks with a rag dipped in the polish. It gives them a lovely patina!

Originally I was going to stick wire in the tops of these to attach pictures of my family, and I still might but I love them as is for now!

Thanks for looking!
Kelly

Comments Are Working Again!

For a second there I thought my Shamrock was just a big dud! Then I remembered that I installed a new template and there was a "something something something" about comments not working correctly. Hmmmmm.... easy fix and now we are all good! So that shows me for trying to get all fancy! I had a lot of fun thrifting and dollar store shopping today so.....fun posts will be a coming!