Weekly Schedule

Last summer I started a chore chart with my boys.  It lists what chores they are responsible for and one activity of the day (sometimes fun, sometimes work).  I was very good about keeping it up over the summer, but once school started it got to be too much.  Last week my oldest asked me if we could do the chore charts again.  :)  I quickly agreed!  But I felt like we needed something more this year.

I wanted a weekly dry erase board to write the activities of the week.  I couldn't find anything like I wanted at the store.  Then I remembered this post about using the glass in a frame as the dry erase and decided to try to make my own!

This chart will be focused on places we have to go or things we are doing during the week.  Like a family calendar.  Whereas the chore chart gives the chores for the day and an activity (like going to the pool, or doing laundry).

In Photoshop Elements I made this document.  I used some digi papers from...can you guess who?  Crystal Wilkerson!!  I turned the opacity of the papers to 50% so that I could easily write on it and see what I wrote.

On the side of my calendar portion I have a section called Snack Choices.  If allowed to choose their own snack every day my boys would go for carbs all the time!  I wanted them to begin to work in some other healthy choices as well.  So part of the chart lists things we have in the house, but that they may only have once during the week.  I'm not sure the best way to keep track of what they have already had.  I'm thinking if they both eat the same thing they can erase it from the list.  Or they could each have a dry erase marker and put a dot next to the one they ate.  We'll figure out something!  :)  But hopefully this will limit the number of carb and sugar based snacks they eat during the week.

Then I listed the snack choices that they can eat anytime.  Again, I only listed what we have in the house this week.  I am all about encouraging my boys to be independent.  I want them to get their own snacks, but I want to guide them to make better choices.

I love the simplicity of writing directly on the glass.  It makes an easy dry erase surface!  And with this simple (cheap!  $3 at Target) 8x10 frame I have the perfect place to keep my family calendar and snack choices for the week!  Yay!

What do you do to organize your summer days?

Schedule Board for Stroke Patients

I've mentioned before that my Dad suffered a massive stroke on December 1st, 2010.  His stroke was a right brain stroke which means that it affected the left side of his body.  My Dad, a mechanical engineer with several patents to his name, now needs help with almost everything.  His short term memory is spotty. And he has to follow directions given by his wife and daughter almost constantly.  How depressing right?

We wanted Dad to have a say in his day as well as know what comes next.  So I put together this schedule board.

Since this board needs to be out and visible all the time Mom wanted it to look nice.  So I went to an office supply store and bought this magnetic dry erase board with a wooden frame. Instead of hanging it on the wall I bought a picture frame easel to support it.  This way it can sit on the floor, which will be easier for Dad to see.

I made all the tags in Photoshop Elements and printed them on cardstock.  Then I had them laminated and added magnets to the back of each tag.

The times are highlighted in red.  Dad has trouble remembering to scan all the way to the left.  So hopefully by reminding him to look for the red tags he can find the times he needs.  The activity tags are in brown.  And there are small car tags in green designating that a certain activity requires a car ride.  There are also some blank tags that we can write on if we come up with any other activities needed in the schedule.

Because it would be too confusing to have all the extra tags on the front of the board I am hanging these little baggies from the back.  I hope to come up with a better solution at some point.  I'd love a basket that would hang on the back of the frame.  Still working on that one though.  :)

In the top corner of the board I placed a large digital clock (actually a kitchen timer).  I also found these adorable day of the week magnets.  I knew that would help Dad keep track of what day it is.  And these magnetic dry erase markers are perfect for writing in any changes in his day.

The plan is that every day Mom will start the schedule.  There will be parts of every day that Dad can choose what activity he wants to do.  Then as the day goes on and Dad starts to get antsy, as he so often does, Mom can direct him to the schedule board to see what comes next.  

Another issue of Dad's is an obsession with using the bathroom.  Like every 15 min.  Except he doesn't actually go most of the time.  So by adding bathroom breaks into the schedule we can say to him, "You went at 9:30, go check and see what time it is and when your next break is"  Hopefully that will make the clock the bad guy, and not us.  :)  We'll see how it goes.  And I'm sure the board will go through several renditions as we discover what is most needed.

While I made this board for my dad I can certainly see it's uses in the home as well.  Especially with summer coming up!  You could use something like this to make a daily schedule.  For children I would add pictures to the activity cards.  That way when the kids are driving you crazy with the I'm bored stuff you can direct them to the schedule board to see what is next on the agenda.  I did something similar, but way less detailed, last summer.  You can read about it here.

What do you do to organize your day?  Leave a comment and share your ideas with us!

Kids Craft Zone

As promised here are some pics of my kids craft zone that I set up in my craft room.  Some of you may remember seeing this post about my scrapbook organization.  If you did you know that I have one whole wall of shelves dedicated to organizing by color.  Well I took some space out of those shelves to create my kids zone.

I took one (well two if you count the lite brite space) of the bottom cubbies and created a kid area.  I put in a bin of craft supplies, some lined paper, and some cardstock.

The inside of my bin looks like this.  Full of crafty fun!

In my two cups I have colored pencils and markers (washable of course!)  And did you know Crayola now makes their marker bodies black instead of white?  Apparently they are making their markers out of recycled plastic and can't make the white color.  Some of these markers are the new recycled kind and some aren't.  Sorry you can't see the black ones!  Apparently to go green they had to go black.  Love that!  :)

In one of the pencil boxes I have some scraps of patterned paper.  I just went through my stash of paper scraps and pulled out the pieces that I don't really like, that I have lots of, or that has holes cut out of the middle.  I just chopped it down to small enough pieces to fit in the box and stuffed it in.  Now my boys have fun paper to use when they pull out my box of punches.

We also have stickers all over this house.  I gathered up the ones I know I'll never use on a layout and stuck them in the second pencil box.  They probably won't last long, but the next time they get a sheet of stickers we'll have a defined place to put them!

Then in a small basket I have scissors, glue sticks (much less messy than white glue) and some stencils.  I also plan to add a couple regular pencils to this basket.

I bought two plastic lap desks for their work space.  They stack and sit easily in the corner.  I picked these up at Hobby Lobby for about $7 each.

I hardly had the supplies in place before it was being put too good use.  My youngest LOVED his own personalized art journal and has already filled several pages.  It was so fun to watch him work.  And it kept him plenty busy while I was creating too.  Love that!

My Scraproom

I keep saying I'll blog about my scraproom soon but never seem to get around to it.  Well today is the day!  :)  You may remember that in the spring of 2010 we moved to a new home.  In my old house I had set up some scrap space in the basement.  I made it very bright and cheery but still...it was next to my washing machine in the basement.

I had painted the concrete floor blue.  Put down green and orange rugs and bought white cabinets and a white countertop from Lowes.  Added some pegboard to the unfinished wall and that was my scrap space.  Now I gotta say, there wasn't much I thought I'd miss about our old house, but leaving this scrap space was one thing that made me sad.

UNTIL I got my new scrap space set up.  :)  In the new house I took over the spare bedroom.  Cause in 10 yrs of being married we've had house guests a handful of times.  So am I going to set up a whole room that will never be used?  I think not!

As you step in the door, which is just off the right side of this picture, the desk is what you come to first.  With my cricut, computer, and printer this is where the digital part of my hybrid scrapping comes into play.  I love having the office in the same space as my scrap supplies!

Continuing around the room you get to my scrap corner.  I set up the long table I use when I go on crops and my desk in an L shape.  I wanted the desk looking out the window so that I have a view and so that I can use natural light while scrapping.  I have a tiny square table in the corner with my TV on it.  I love to watch movies and HGTV while scrapping.  The long table holds my supplies and also becomes my pile area as I'm working. In the 6 drawer unit I have my paper scraps, organized by color.  Red/Orange, Yellow/Green, Blue/Purple, Brown, White/Black/Gray, and the bottom drawer is currently empty.  The two drawer bin holds my inks and my cardboard scraps (I save cereal boxes to use as chipboard with my Cricut).  The overflowing box to the left of my scrap table is where I put my paper scraps for recycle.

Continuing on to the left of my desk I have my sewing machine.  This old sewing machine table of my grandmothers is where I have it for now, but the machine won't fit down inside so I'll have to figure something else out.

And then there is the best wall in the whole room.  *sigh*  My organizing zone.  I was so inspired by Stacy Julian's podcasts on color  I decided to organize my supplies the same way.  I bought two 9 square white shelving units at Walmart and got the bins at Bed Bath and Beyond.  My bins are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown, and multi colored.  The two additional bins house punches and other misc supplies (refills for adhesive, cutting blades, etc).  I have two small 3 drawer containers that each have their own cube, which contain stamps and such.  And several cubes for larger items that just wouldn't fit anywhere else.

Ok so back to the color organization.  Each  bin contains any embellishment in that color, buttons, bling, glitter, markers, letter stickers you name it.  When I get a new sheet of embellishments I think about what color stands out to me and that is where it goes.  When I'm scrapping I decide what colors go with my layout, pull out those bins, and find what works best.  I do not have separate containers for holidays but since most Christmas items are green and red they go in the green or red bins.  Then when I am doing a Christmas layout, it typically is green or red, so the green and red bins are the ones I pull out and then I have everything at my fingertips.  It's perfect for using up old supplies too because when organized by color you find things you forgot you had.  I LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!  phew...deep breath.  :)

Now back to the wall.  The paper is also organized by color.  I have clear trays on top of the shelves where I put my solid cardstock.  Then to the right of the shelving I have a paper shelf I got at a going out of business sale for only $10!  What a find!  There the paper is also organized by color but within each color I have a shelf for solid/monochromatic and a shelf for patterns.  In this case I do also have a shelf for holiday themed papers.  Finally, on top of the shelves I have 12 magazine boxes where I store my scrapbooking mags by month.

And there you have it.  My haven!  What does your scrap space look like?  Blog about it and link us up in the comments section so we can see!

Organizing Fun

Has it really been nearly a month since my last post??  Man the summer is slipping by!  I've been thinking a lot recently about organizing as I finish unpacking boxes in our new home.  I recently discovered a blog called Simplify 101 all about organizing!  It's my new favorite spot to visit.  Recently there was a blog post about creating a "summer sanity saver" (aka chore chart).  I LOVED the idea and couldn't wait to make my own.

Since my boys are still young I wanted to use pictures on my charts.  It took me awhile searching on google for images that would fit my needs.  And this is what I came up with.

Some activities I expect of my boys every day, so those were printed directly onto the chart.  We are learning to read digital time so I wanted the chart to have some times on it.  Each day each child will have one specific chore.  I used velcro dots to attach the rotating chore onto the chart.

Since Keaton is younger he is not expected to shower on his own every day.  :)  At the bottom of the chart the boys will get a star for the day if they complete their required chores.  If they don't finish a chore then there are two for the next day.

Here are some examples of the chores the boys will do.  Now they are 3 and 5 so these chores are much simpler than they may seem.  When I see clean the van, I mean take out the toys and papers that have accumulated on the floor of the van.  Or vacuuming is using the handheld vac to clean up crumbs under the stools at the island.  But even at 3 and 5 I think it is so important for the boys to participate in our home.

Each day we also have an activity of the day.  Some are fun and some are work.  The boys and I talk about how they are a part of our household community and they need to contribute to taking care of our home.  They are so excited to get started.

These are some of the activities of the day that require caring for our household community.  On these days the boys chore will correlate with what I am doing that day.  On laundry day they will help put away their clothes.  On grocery day they will help put away groceries.  On the day we wash the car, they will help...and let's face it that one will seem fun to them!  On the day I clean the house they will clean in some way as well.

But it is summer!  We have to have fun activities too.  So here are some examples of the fun we will have this summer.

So have fun and try making your own chore chart!  Or leave a post with your email and I'll send you mine.  It's a simple word document.  I just printed it on cardstock and had it laminated.

I feel like things are so much easier to keep up with when there is a plan!  Even you can have fun organizing!