A Few Crafts

 

Here is our Family Fall Tree that we made since last posting.  We had such a nice time together.  I found some good music on Pandora we all could enjoy and we scratched pretty designs in our leaves all evening.  Great memories were made and possibly a new tradition was started!

Today's project was inspired by this:

The bookshelf in JoJo and Mouse's room was in need of a little, um, straightening.  Seems no matter how we try to organize it, it always looks like this in a matter of days.  I thought about the beauty of baskets and wondered if that would help.  Then I thought about how much moolah I've already spent this month and decided I needed to get creative.  I searched through my own cardboard boxes and decided on a granola bar box.




                                     


I taped the ends back together, cut off the top and the cut out a piece from the front.  Then I searched through my papers so I could cover it.  I pulled out my pack of superhero paper, knowing it would be loved by the boyos!

 

Here's the finished product.  Now to get it into their room.

 



                                                                      
 I think it's cute!  And the boys will think it's cool.  Here are the shelves after I resorted everything.  More boxes/baskets are needed and more sorting needs to be done (do we still need "Goodnight Little Rabbit?")  but this is a start.  They can pull out a box/basket and when they are done the whole thing goes back on the shelf.  I just hope they remember to put the books in it...




What have you been crafting?

Chores and Boys

My brother and I were never assigned chores.  Not for very long anyway.  Maybe I should say, not that I can remember.   Hubs and his sister, however, were assigned chores.  Hubs and I had many discussions about what to expect from our boys as they grew.  And I'll tell ya, as the boyos grow the messes grow with them.  The kitchen messes, the food messes, the laundry messes, the bathroom messes, etc., etc., etc.  And I don't like being responsible for everyone else's messes ALL of the time.  It's so easy to grow resentful.  I soon agreed with hubs that we needed to expect certain things of the boys on a regular basis.  Here are couple of  our ideas.  We've been using these for a little over a year and they've worked well.

This is our "To Do/ Done Did" chart.  This chart goes up on the fridge every Friday and the boys know they have all weekend to get the jobs done.  The list has been tweaked a couple of times.  Never hurts to make improvements!  So it works like this.  All of the clothespins start on the "To Do" side of the chart.  The boys divvy up the chores depending on what they want to do and what they did last weekend, or even what they haven't gotten to do in a while!  Then they get to work.  The clothespins get moved to the "Done Did" side as the jobs are completed.  Pretty easy and it works well.  I don't have to assign chores.  They don't have to do the SAME JOBS every time.  Some they do on their own, some they work together to complete.   I just made this out of layered scrapbook paper, some punch out letters and then I glued the same paper to clothespins.  Easy and fun!

This picture didn't turn out so great.  Bummer.  What I want you to see is the 3 pocket wire organizer.  I found it at The Container Store but when I searched their site for a link, I could no longer find the product.  Closest things were  here and here. But this piece was just what I needed at the start of last school year.  One pocket for each boy.  All school papers and homework goes in their pocket.  They can find what they need for school each day, including signed papers that need to go back (assuming those things did not make it into the backpack already).  Then the pockets get cleaned out every weekend.  They learn to throw what's not needed anymore and find a permanent home for what's really important.  It works for me!

My room is done...for now!

I've got my craft room to a place where I like it.  It'll probably change over the next few years, but that's expected.  My needs and desires might change so I'll change the space with them. But for now!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Here's what I've got now.

These two shelves look so much less cluttered I think.  The two black and white boxes with the pink trim I picked up at Dollar General.  They hold miscellaneous craft items like paints, glue, modge podge, embroidery floss - things I use but not every day or even every week.  The two white boxes are from Ikea (REALLY wish we had one closer to us!) and they hold other little seldom used items.  The wicker basket holds a cross stitch project I've been working on for Y-E-A-R-S!  I may never finish it, but I really like to stitch now and then in the evening.  File folders hold paper memorabilia of the boys' that I want to scrap, like special notes from the teacher or copies of programs.  The 3 stacked round boxes are from a dear friend.  Here's a close up:

One of my favorite stamps says, "A friend knows the song in my heart, and sings it when my memory fails."

That sentiment is printed on one of the boxes.  Sweet, huh?  These hold my very tiny supply of sewing notions.  I'm not a sewer.  I'm a mender.  And a mother of scouts.  So I have thread of various colors and needles to sew on patches and merit badges.  And perform surgery on the occasional stuffed animal.  I think I also have some straight pins, a tape measure and a stitch ripper.  Other than that...sewing...pffft.

Here is one of my tables.  Told you I had tables in this room! 

Can you see the sign?  It says, "Mothers of little boys work from son up till son down!"  Gift from my sister-in-law.  She's got it right!  The shoe boxes in the corner hold my ink pads.  The wicker basket has all the photos that need to get put away.  They are contained and not lying around potentially getting lost!  That makes me happy.  Bud's scout scrapbook is lying open.  I have room to work!  YES!  The binder on the left holds my unmounted stamps.  I have plans to cover it with paper and make it prettier.  And behind it are organizers that hold magazines, catalogs and other "hey, I want to make that" kinds of things.  I've promised myself I'm not allowed any more than what these organizers can hold.  So if I come home with a new magazine, something old MUST go.  Good rule to have.

This is the other leg to my L-shaped table.  Love the peg board. I'm always changing what goes here and what goes in little drawers.  The bulletin board I'd like to cover with fabric or paper crisscrossed ribbon (know what I mean?) just to make it prettier.  It holds "love notes" from my boys and family memories.  The small drawers on top hold stamping supplies, chalks, blocks, little pieces of "stuff" I just can't bear to get rid of...yeah, we all have drawers for that.  12x12 drawers underneath for paper.  Still need one more set of those.  And the new wall decor!!

Another gift from my dear friend, Lisa, who sells Uppercase Living.  Another fav quote of mine is "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."  Isn't that beautiful?  So she thought I needed this for my room.  I love it!  It speaks about what I want the room to be.  Not just paper crafting art, but anything beautiful that is made that cleanses the soul.  Whether it's music or writing, coloring, gluing.  Anything. 

So!  There you have it!  Nothing like what Martha might have done, but it suites me just fine. 

Craft room update

Hi!  Got your coffee?  I've got mine.  Let's chat about my room, hmm? 

I'm making progress!  I love being able to say that.  "Progress is being made."  "Things are progressing nicely."  They all sound good.  I can see my tables again.  Woo hoo!  The floor now, that's another story...

Here's what I did.  I grabbed 3 laundry baskets from the basement and, in my queenly fashion, dubbed them:

1. "You don't belong here" = item belongs in another room of the house
2. "You do belong here" = item stays in my room
3. "You are leaving my house, one way or another."  = it's being donated to Goodwill or given to a friend or thrown out!

Then I started pulling everything off the tables and shelves.  EVERYTHING went into one of those 3 baskets.  I really enjoyed tossing things into the baskets.  I really did!  Especially the two on the ends (you don't belong here and you are leaving my house).  I didn't have to think about where the item did belong or what it's fate would be, I just tossed it.  Decisions to be made later.  Love that!  The basket that was the fullest was the You Do Belong Here basket.  In fact, it was spilling out onto the floor. And most of it is still there!  Yep, I've got my work cut out for me.

 Once my tables were cleaned, I started moving things back in.  I thought a lot about how I like to work, what I want the room to look like.  I don't spend that much time thinking about myself and how I like to do things.  So I pushed myself to do that and was able to make some decisions about how to store and display my supplies.   As I went along I realized some more storage type things would be needed.  A power cord for my Cricut, heat tool, glue gun, light and other possible crafting necesseties.  A tension rod for storing ribbons on.  I'm going to try using it vertically by threading the ribbon spools on and installing it between the shelves.  Not sure it'll work but I'll give it a try.  Another 12x12 set of drawers for storing papers and page protectors. 

I have more decisions to make today and I better get to it.  I'll try to get new pics up, too, once there is something good to share.  But first on my list is to empty at least one basket.  I started laundry earlier and I only have one basket to work with right now.  Yikes!