Let’s Get Organized ~ Summer Chores

We have been on summer break for about 3 weeks now. I wanted to get the summer chores enforced and our new summer schedule going when we got back from Reno a couple weeks ago, but I had a hard time getting my act together and wanting to enforce chores. I’ve been working on finishing up all the “paperwork” to go along with our schedule and chores and I finally got it up on Friday. I’m still working out the kinks and I’m sure I’ll change things up as the summer goes along. It’s all about trial and error, right?

I am excited about this post, despite the fact that ! I am not that great about making my kids do chores. Those things that are so much easier for me to just do them and get them done quickly, you know them, right? I’m not one of those moms that has to have chores done PERFECTLY, but I am one of those moms that doesn’t want to stand around all day waiting for my kids to finish their chores.

SO, I went to the good old World Wide Web and did a Google search for Summer Chore Charts and Ideas. I found SO many good ideas and I wanted to do EVERY SINGLE one of them! BUT I had to choose just one, so my kids wouldn’t get too overwhelmed, and so that I wouldn’t either. There were two that really stood out to me and I kind of tweaked them to make them my own.

The first blog I went to was Organizing Made Fun. Becky is a GREAT blogger! She is one of the blogs that I LOVE to get daily emails from. I loved her idea of having the kids earn Media Minutes and I downloaded her 2 printables from her summer chore post. I know these will work great for my boys! they LOVE to just sit around and watch show after show after show. I’m not going to have ANY of that this summer!! I’m going to be on top of my job!!

The next blog I found was called Just Organize Yourself. I loved her summer chore post because it linked to a bunch of great ideas for chore charts. She goes into more detail on how she does her chores and lists in this post.

There were SO many more blogs that I found with great ideas! There were too many for me to read them all. A couple more I liked were Chicken Babies, Raising a Healthy Family and Homebody, she does a 3 part series called Summer Plan Mini Series:

*Rules and Consequences

*Kids Chores

*Fun Stuff

I also went on pinterest, of course!! I have already pinned a bunch of ideas and there was one that I’m definitely going to do, FINALLY! I’ve had it pinned ever since I opened my account I believe! LOL You can view my summer chore board HERE.

Chore Punch Cards ( I printed some off on my computer with cardstock and cut them out. Each kid starts the week out with one card and for every chore he does all the way AND the RIGHT way he’ll get a punch. Once the card is full he can cash it in for a prize. I have a prize box in my craft room that is overflowing. I’ve been saving up stuff for a while now.)

Chore Cards (I actually bought these cards a couple years ago. It was only $1.50 and she had them all written up and I didn’t have to do any work. I have never actually put them into use though so they are now going to come into play; although, I did tweak them to fit my needs. Each boy picks a chore card for the day and they also have to do one Kitchen job as well as all their morning and evening routine chores. The routine chores don’t count for the punch cards, though. Just the cleaning chores count. Depending on what Chore they are assigned on a certain day, they can earn more than 2 punches. I’m very optimistic that this will work!)

Are you ready to see all these things in ACTION??!! I have been hard at work in the last week getting everything organized and together and I am really proud of how it all turned out! It wasn’t anything fancy like some of the chore charts I admired on Just Organize Yourself, but it was easy and I didn’t feel overwhelmed by it. This week we will definitely be using all of these things I have talked about in this post, starting TODAY! I can’t wait! (Is it weird that I’m excited about getting my kids to do chores? I’m sure I will hate it after 10 seconds of instigating it! LOL)

This is what the chore area has looked like since school got out, pretty bare.

And this is what it looks like now!  What do you think? I laminated all the chore cards and then taped them onto the metal board with washi tape. I’ve been itching to use some of it and thought it was a pretty good idea to use it for this little project:) I got the idea for this on this blog and made it my own.

So, this is how I’ve thought it out, each kid has a pocket. They will always have an Evening and Morning checklist in their pocket so they can check everything off and get it initialed by Mom or Dad. At the beginning of each day I will have them randomly choose between 2 chores. I will assign who gets what kitchen chores. The Mom’s Choice chores will be done when needed. I’m not really sure if I’ll let those ones be a weekly thing or just when I feel like having them do it. That’s why they got a separate category.

These are all the chore cards I have printed up.

I have the media minute tickets in the blue holder that has the stickers and pencils, etc.

I found this cute calender on a blog while I was browsing summer chore charts. I edited it to fit our schedule.

These are the Chore Punch Cards I did up. I used a different color at the bottom for each boy, depending on what their favorite color is. I’m planning on throwing these out after they are filled up so I did not laminate them. If you want a free copy of these you can download them HERE.

We are hard at work keeping up with our new summer schedule and doing chores this morning. I will be back next week with a progress report Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great Monday!

Pinterest Pick Friday ~ 4th of July Wreath

I’m so excited to show you this project!! I LOVE how it turned out!!

I found the idea on pinterest a couple weeks ago when I was looking for one to make for this upcoming holiday. This one really stuck out to me! I had to search a couple of blogs to get to the tutorial for it, but I finally found it and got to work.

And let me tell you, this was NOT a one sitting wreath project!! It took about 3 hours to finish it completely. Of course, I was doing it at night while watching a new favorite TV show with the hubs, soooo, I would get distracted easily. It was very time consuming. If you’re not patient and like fast results, this wreath probably isn’t for you, but if you put on a favorite movie or watch TV, you can actually enjoy doing it.

Here’s the finished result:

I used a LOT of pins!! I had to go back to the store to buy more because I ran out. I decided I was ok with leaving the pins in. At first I thought I’d pin a bunch and then glue the felt pieces on with hot glue, but that added another step and I really didn’t want to do that. I’m a lazy crafter!

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the stars from sticker paper and then sandwiched floral wire I bought at walmart for $1.27 in between 2 star stickers.

My rows aren’t as full as they could be. I might go back and add more for next year.

I am really please with the finished project!! It turned out a lot better than I thought it would! Doesn’t it look great on my front door?!! If you want to make one head on over to Capital B where I got the tutorial from. It’s easy, just time consuming!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend!!

Whatcha Craftin’ ~ Pillowcase Dresses & Shorts for Uganda

Ok, I know that I have blogged about this topic about 2 or 3 times already, but I wanted to show you the final line up of what I made. I was really excited to be able to participate in this great cause! I really hope the girls and boys love these clothes we’ve made for them!

Here are all the pillowcase dresses I made, 6 in total. For these I mainly used fat quarters I bought at Walmart for $1 each.

These ones are my favorites!

 

The orange one has white butterflies on it. SO cute!!

And here are all the shorts I ended up making, 9 total.

These three below were my favorite. I had fun picking out fat quarters for these at Walmart, too!

My husband was kind enough to send out the package to Mallory last week while I was in Reno. I hope she gets them before she leaves! I was a little behind in sending them.

My goal now is to make 2-3 dresses a month, at least, to send to Mallory next year. I also want to make that many shorts, possibly more. They’re so easy and fun to make!

Did you participate in this charity? If so how many dresses did you make? My sister and her church ward ended up giving them baby blankets and other needed supplies. That’s Awesome!

Thanks for stopping by today! I’m finally getting back into the swing of things after my little vacation to Reno and school getting out. I hope you’re enjoying your summer so far! Come back on Friday for a fun Pinterest Pick post!

Pinterest Pick Friday ~ Bridesmaid Up Do

Are you surprised to see me blogging today?!! I’m surprised myself!! I just got home from Reno on Monday, where I photographed my sister’s wedding and a bunch of other fun family stuff we did that weekend! It was a LOT of fun, but boy am I TIRED!!! I have a feeling it will take me a while to get rid of that feeling too!

Anyway, I kind of cheated with this pinterest pick because I didn’t actually do it myself…. Since my sister was getting married she made hair and make-up appointments for my sisters, cousin, aunt, mom and me at a local beauty college. We all went with an idea of what we wanted our hair to look like. OF COURSE I turned to my favorite source for ideas, Pinterest! This is what I found when I searched for bridesmaid hair:

I LOVED the bun in the first one and the curly hair in the second one. I showed my stylist the two pictures and she got to work. How long did it take??!! TWO HOURS!! Then they also did my makeup! I was almost late for the wedding! (Well, not really, but the bride had to wait for me to put on her dress so I could take pics. It was stressing me out how long it took!!)

And here’s the finished version of my hair! I LOVED how it turned out!  Isn’t it just gorgeous?!! Who knew my hair could look this pretty? I don’t think I’ve ever had an up-do done before.

There were so many bobby pins in my hair and it was so heavy on my head I was afraid I would have a HUGE headache by the end of the day, but I didn’t! It was GREAT!! I didn’t even have a slight headache! I was SO happy! The pictures went well during and after the wedding. I’m excited to show you how they turned out! I’ve been working on them this week so hopefully I’ll have some to show you next week.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend!!

Guest Post by Susan from Organized 31 ~ Summer Outdoors Kit

Hi, I’m Susan from Organized 31.  I’m excited to be here at Crafty Meggy to share my super easy Grab n’ Go Ready for the Summer Outdoors Kit.

I blogged last summer {here} about how happy I was when I found this cute puzzle box at the thrift shop. When I saw the puzzle box, I knew immediately what I wanted to repurpose it into.

With 3 children and lots of summer activities, I found that since we were always running 20 different  places every day I kept forgetting to bring sunscreen or bug spray.  I got tired of the “duh, I forgot it again”  moments.

To solve the problem and take good care of my family, I collected the items we need at a typical outdoor activity:

Baby Wipes                          Bug-off spray                    Sunscreen            Hand sanitizer

These items easily fit into my cute little puzzle tin.

In case you don’t have a cute little tin laying around, you could repurpose a pencil box (especially now with kids bringing used school supplies home at the end of the school year).

Or if your children are younger, you could repurpose a baby wipes box (do they even make this style any more?)

My handy Grab n’ Go Summer Outdoors Kit has found its happy home in the trunk of the car and now I never forget to bring these items with me in the craziness of herding a family of 5 out the door to the next activity.

Guest Post by Amy from One Artsy Mama ~ Family Name Sign

Hi there, Megan’s friends and followers!  I’m Amy, aka One Artsy Mama, and I’m happy to be here filling in while Megan is enjoying some time with her family this week.  I ‘met’ Megan through the Grow Your Blog Mentoring Program {she was one of my guinea pigs in the first session!} and have enjoyed watching her blog change and grow over the last five months.

Today, I want to share with you a fun, simple, and sentimental project that anyone can make!  I first got inspired for this when I saw some fabulous Sentimental Word Art linked up at my weekly party by Karah from The Space Between.  I immediately knew I wanted to do something similar; here’s how I did it!

FAMILY NAME SIGN

Materials:

- scrap of wood {mine was from Michaels and cost less than $2}

- acrylic paint and brush

- fine tip paint pen

- printout or vinyl cutout of your name

- scissors

- painters’ tape

- sandpaper

- fabric scraps

- hot glue gun and gluesticks

- list of family favorites and memories

STEP 1: Paint your wood in desired color.  Let dry.

I let my Little Crafter do this step!

STEP 2: Print out your name or whatever word you’re using and cut the letters out to make a stencil.  Use painters’ tape to adhere it to your sign.  I made this in the days before I had a cutting machine.  If I were to do it again, I’d cut it out with adhesive vinyl instead.  Much easier.

 

STEP 3: If you haven’t already, brainstorm a list of things your family enjoys or has in common.  We included favorite vacation spots, foods, and special memories.

 

STEP 4: Write your memories inside the stencil using your paint pen.  The bigger your wood, the more you’ll be able to write.  I got a lot less on my sign than Karah was able to.

 

STEP 5: Remove stencil and distress sign using sandpaper…more about that later.

 

STEP 6: If you like, make a couple of fabric roses and glue in place.

 

TA-DA!

The wood was about $1.60, the paint pen was around $4, and the stand was $3, so I got it all for less than ten bucks.  Not too shabby.

 

Here it is in its new home! 

Now, don’t stop reading yet, I have a few more things to share that you won’t want to miss.

First, here’s what I learned about distressing.

 

1. I am the worst distresser in the world.

 

2. Do NOT let LC do your base coat of paint because he’s too good at it.  You will be sanding and sanding until your arm is sore and that paint won’t want to come off.

 

3. Do NOT sit your DSLR camera next to you while sanding.  You might accidentally knock it off your table with your elbow which might break part of it which will result in you having to pay an exorbitant repair fee or having to get a new one.  Just saying.

 

Second, has anyone else ever had a conversation like this with the hubs?

 

Him: “What are you doing?”

Her: “I’m just distressing this.”

Him: “Didn’t you just paint it?”

Her: “yes”

Him: “Then why are you sanding all the paint off?”

Her: “To make it look weathered…you know, distressed”

Him: “Why would you want to do that?”

Her: “Because it’s shabby chic!”

Him: “What?”

Her: “Oh, nevermind.”

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!  I’d love for you to come visit me over at One Artsy Mama!  I co-host a rockin’ link party on Fridays, and I’m currently running a fun crafting competition called One Crafty Contest where you can stop by each Monday to vote for your favorite entries!

Hugs and Glitter,

Amy Latta is the
author of One
Artsy Mama, where she
shares a variety of project types including home decor, kids’ crafts, sewing,
jewelry, and more.  Recently, she published her first e-book, Crochet
101, to help beginners learn basic crochet
stitches and techniques.  She is happiest when creating something and
enjoys making all kinds of projects with her 4 year old “Little
Crafter.” In her spare time, Amy is a professional ballroom, latin, and
swing dancer.  When not on the dance floor or crafting, you can probably
find her at Starbucks.

Let’s Get Organized ~ Summer Schedule & Plans

Well, we made it through another year of school and my 2 school age boys are now home FULL TIME! It’s officially SUMMER in our house! YAY!! Oh, wait, that means I have to be around them all day. And break up fights and tantrums and here the endless whining…. *SIGH*

I will say this: I LOVE my kids. Very. Much. BUT, that being said, my two older ones are getting to the age where they LOVE to bother each other or their little brother. They LOVE to fight, or so it seems. They LOVE to whine and complain and make messes… so, when people have been asking me if I’m excited for summer I say “NO!!!”

Am I a horrible mom for feeling that way? I feel bad that I don’t enjoy summer as much as I could, but when you spend most of your days yelling at your kids to STOP yelling (LOL I wonder why they yell haha) and fighting and bothering each other, it’s just not that enjoyable. Last year we went on a LOOONNNGGG vacation to CA and Vegas. It was AWESOME and I think it helped the summer pass fast! This year we have a few plans; my sis is getting married June 1st in Reno and we’re going! Wooo!, I’ve signed the boys up for a couple of different sports and camps, but for the most part we will be stuck at home. I am wracking my brain thinking of ways not to go crazy with all 3 wild and crazy boys of mine in the same house 24 hours a day for 3 months straight!! Here is what I came up with:

I have mapped out a daily schedule. I’m not really a stickler when it comes to schedules. I usually plan out my days, BUT they never seem to go how I plan. With the new summer schedule I wanted to basically give myself an idea of what I want to have accomplished in a certain time frame. I will more than likely be flexible, but we WILL get all chores done before they can play or do anything exciting.

Our daily schedule during the summer will go something like this:

6-9am ~ wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for the day, TV time (WHY on earth would I list 6am as a possible wake up hour?!! Well, I only have ONE out of THREE children that actually sleeps in!! *SIGH* SO there is a big possibility that I will still have the same hours of sleep as I do during the school year. BIG possibility!)

(I say TV time because I often will get up at 6 with the 2 boys that are early birds and let them watch TV until Jonas wakes up. I also let them watch TV on the iPad we have in the kitchen during breakfast.)

9-10am ~ Choretime. I am working on chore charts for all 3 boys and hopefully will come back soon with a post just about that!

10am-12pm ~ Activity/Outside Playtime!! This will be the time that we do all those fun activities I have planned for us this summer (I guess I better start thinking!!). The cheap theater in town does a movie pass during the summer so I always buy one. They play the movies on Thursday – Saturday at 10am, 12:30pm and 2:30pm. I will mostly likely find a babysitter for Tinian when we do this activity. We will go play at the park and do picnics, ride bikes, play in the backyard. Oh, and swimming is high on the agenda! Brynnan keeps asking me when they can start doing lessons!

If I don’t have anything planned they will have mandatory playtime outside. Maybe we’ll even do a mandatory picnic in the backyard every week I am considering buying a trampoline again. I am also thinking of putting out a wading pool for them to easily have access to. Brynnan keeps asking if we have a pool. He remembers the one I bought for his birthday 2 years ago that we haven’t used since. It’s one of those blow up ones that I used to have to do by myself because we didn’t have anything to blow it up but a little air pump. Now we have a shop vac so it will hopefully be NICE and EASY to blow that sucker up!

12pm ~ Lunchtime! (12:30-ish) After lunch, before Tini goes down for his nap, I will read to the boys. Once I’ve put Tinian down for a nap the boys will read by themselves for 20 minutes. Then, they can have their Free time, see below.

1-3pm ~ Tinian ~ naptime, Jonas and Brynnan ~ Freetime. Free time could mean anything! They can play outside, go to a friends house, have a friend come over and play, art time at the table, or video game/computer game time (which they WILL have to earn each day by doing daily chores.)

3-5pm ~ MORE Outside Play!! (During this time I will have them play in the backyard so I can get work done or have some alone time.)

5-6pm ~ TV time. (While Mark and I, wait, who am I kidding?, while Mark prepares dinner they can watch a little TV, if they want to. Tinian and Brynnan would probably play outside all day! I haven’t decided if this is free or if they have to earn this TV time.)

6-7pm ~ Dinner and clean up. Jonas and Brynnan will take turns helping me clean up after dinner. I haven’t fully decided on how this will work yet. I’m thinking that they will switch off days, like, Jonas helps me wash the dishes M,W,F and Brynnan clears the table and washes it off on those days. Jonas will clear of the table and wash it on T, T, Sat and Brynnan do the dishes.

If there is time left before 7 we can do something as a family, play a board game or video game or whatever. Maybe just sit and watch TV together. I just want us to be together as a family.

7-8pm ~ Bedtime Prep. Our boys ALWAYS go to bed at 8! Even during the summer! Why? We have found that with a consistent sleeping schedule they are happier. Sometimes we stretch it past 8:00 and it’s not too bad, but if the boys go to bed any later than 9:00 they are usually REALLY crabby the next day! ALSO, this allows for Mark and I to have 2 hours of time alone before we go to bed.

I think that I want to start reading the scriptures with them before they go to bed, which is another reason why we would start getting them ready at 7:00. It allows us time to get everything done and not feel rushed.

So there you have it. Our tentative Summer Schedule. Today is the first day I will be implementing it so I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m kind of excited! I can’t wait to share with you what I came up with to make chores FUN!!

Come back on Wednesday to see what my amazing guest blogger, One Artsy Mama, has to show you!

Last Day of School!! ~ Teacher Scrapbooks

If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen a couple photos having to do with teacher scrapbooks I’ve been working on this week. I’m finally ready to show them off!

I’ve been planning on making each teacher a scrapbook all year long. I Finally took pictures of the class last week and I printed them off on  Monday this week. I’ve been working on putting the pictures on cute paper and stamping names on the pages for the past 2 days!! I finally finished yesterday and I am here to show you the finished projects. I LOVE them!! They aren’t as FANCY as the scrapbooks I made last year. I did those ones on the computer so it was easier to make them look fancy. Paper scrapbooking is HARD compared to digital!! BUT, I was determined to do something different this year, since my 1st grader has the same teacher as my older boy had last year. I didn’t want her to get the same scrapbook with different picture. I’m a perfectionist like that. So, here you go:

I bought some cute We R memory keepers 4×6 journal cards at Target and used them because they were already decorated cute. All I had to do was glue on the picture!

Oh, I did use some of my new washi tape for this page because it was a little bland. Still easy peasy!

I used a friends stamps to embellish the top page a little bit.

And my cutie is on the bottom of the above picture

We did a big class picture as well.

And at the end of the whole scrapbook I put in a little extra journal card for them to write down their favorite things about the year if they want.

So, that’s my first graders teacher scrapbook. I’m really emotional about not having a first grader anymore! I’ll miss the teacher! She has been a lot of fun to work with and get to know!

Now moving onto my 2nd graders teacher scrapbook. He has a HUGE class!! 28 kids!! So her book took a little bit longer to complete than Brynnan’s!

 

My cutie, Jonas, in the picture above.

 

Aren’t these journal cards just THE cutest?!! I have some left over so I can’t wait to use them!! IF I ever get around to scrapbooking! lol

 

I had FUN with the stamps my friend lent me!

And that’s it! I’m going to put them into bags and write a nice Thank you note to them. My friend, Karlenn, has an Etsy shop where she sells her cards and she is SO amazing at it!! I LOVE her cards! I only buy them from her, never the store. NEVER again from the store!! Yes, that’s how good she is! And they’re the same price as buying them at the store! So, go over and visit Kar’s Kards today!!

Anyway, sorry for the detour there. I had to give a shout out to my bestie! I hope you’re having a great week! If your kids are still in school I hope all goes well with the last few weeks and if you want to do something like this for a teacher it’s really simple!! Just buy some journal cards like I did and slap in some pictures. If you don’t have a picture of each kid in the class you could scrapbook pictures from throughout the year if you went into the class to help out or something. I always have my phone with me to snap pictures every time I go in! Just in case!

Hope you all have a wonderful Friday! Thanks for stopping by!!

Guest Post by Kaysi from Keeping it Simple ~ Bubble Skirt

Hi!!  I’m so excited to be here today!  My name is Kaysi and blog over at Keeping it Simple.

I love everything crafty.  I especially love things that are simple and easy!  Most of my crafts can be done by anyone, even if you’re not super crafty.

I love making little skirts for my daughter.  They are so easy to make plus they don’t take much fabric, so they are very inexpensive to make. One of the easiest skirts to make is the bubble skirt.   I wanted to dress it up a little bit, with some lace.

This is how I made it:

I measured my daughter’s waist and the length I wanted it to be.  The waist was 20” and 10”.  I added 4 inches to the waist, to give it a little flare at the knees.  Then for the length, you double the number because the skirt will be folded in half.  I cut a piece of fabric that was 24”x20”.

I then folded the fabric together and sewed it together.

I cut the lace 24”x9”.

Then I cut scallops into the bottom of the lace.

I sewed the lace together like I did the skirt.

I put the lace on the outside of the fabric and then sewed some elastic onto the top.  The elastic was 20” long.

And that’s it!  Super easy and cute!

I love the look of the lace over the blue!

And here is my little girl wearing her new skirt.

I would love it if you followed along.

Flash Friday SALE!!

This week I have been taking it easy and it has been NICE!! I feel relaxed and not stressed about what I have to post the next day!! I have a couple new posts coming next week. One is a guest post from one of my favorite crafty bloggers, Kaysi from Keeping it Simple. I will also be doing somewhat of an organizing post on Monday so you can look forward to that. School is out next Friday for us and I am scrambling to get chores and daily schedules together so I don’t go CA-RAY-ZY!!

Today, I have a fun sale going on in my Etsy shop! I posted each item that is on sale on my Crafty Meggy Facebook page. Go check it out! If you comment on the post first I’ll send you the link to the item on Etsy and you can then purchase it! I’m doing it a little different than others just because I want to get my sales up. Come on over and help a girl out!! I’m trying to get ready for end of the school year items as well as some fun stuff for summer!! I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been working on!!

I hope you’re having a great Friday!! Thanks for stopping by!