Chore Tree

Come to my house any time and you'll find mess everywhere... mostly toys and possibly some craft of mine, and generally me telling someone to do something in a not so nice voice, which I really don't like doing. I have said for weeks now that I am tired of repeating myself and getting worked up over it so decided to make a chore chart... well, tree, in our case. Like most little ones, my kids love hands on visual aids for anything I am trying to teach them so what better than a tree to hang their daily chores on and save my yelling voice. I found my tree at my local scrapbook shop, but I'm sure there are others out there, and you could make your own type of chore tree with cardboard if needed I was lazy and also have been eyeing this tree for some time as I love the design so this was simply an excuse to have it in my home :). I got the kids involved by letting them paint the tree and talking about what we would use it for. Mr6 then helped me think up some daily chore "apples" and we were off :). It took a while to complete but I swear it was worth every second! Tonight there was no yelling and instead I had two super willing children ready to co-operate and go turn over their "apples"...  ALL "apples" have to be "eaten" at the end of the day to be rewarded.... rewards come in EXTRA flowers remember their behaviour charts? which equal extra money at the end of the week. Red apples are Miss 3's, green apples are Mr 6's.

it was my tree so I inked the edges on it ok :)

with our chore apples hung on (they hang on little hooks)

some "eaten" apples (other side of apple)

ABC's

Today I bought a laminator (don't know why it's taken me so long!) and made some quick homework pages for my kids. I am always printing them off and really, I hate to say it, but we WASTE alot of paper in this house!! So with the laminator today we made our alphabet pages, using the QLD Beginners Handwriting Font which I purchased a couple of years ago before Mr6 started school. It's around $10 to download, but I thought it was money well spent, as I have got endless use out of it. Just print, laminate and grab some whiteboard markers (medium point are best I find) and you have re-useable homework sheets :) Great for Miss3 as she is still practising her name and numbers and I plan on making a mini book to pop in my handbag to keep her busy during appointment and long drives :) and of course for her to learn

Before laminating, I marked the 'start' points for Miss3, as she sometimes get confused.

VERY proud of herself :)

Hair Clips

I really need to find some thing to make for boys huh?! BUT girls hair things are just so easy :) I have a thing for ribbon, but these laces were so cheap and I liked the bright colours and patterns so thought I'd test them out... I liked the funky end result.

my shoelace find :)

make a loop and glue ends together (or sew)

make a smaller loop

press in the centre and glue down to make "bows"

glue the smaller one on top of the larger one

wrap a piece around the centre and glue to create a finished bow

glue to the top of your clip

done :)

find a doll to model it on because Miss3 won't cooperate!!

another Father's Day gift

yup, the first gift only took my kids a whole 20mins to make and they were bouncing off the walls to make another so we moved onto gift 2, a photo frame. We got cheap photo frames at Ikea (I think they were 3 for $5) and decorated them.

we used nails, washers, bolts, nuts & screws but you could also use golf tees for the golfing dad, or shells and even a wax comb for the surfing kinda daddy :)

use PVA glue to stick bits around your frame

Mr6 spelt out 'dad' on his frame- I thought it was a great idea!

let the glue dry (will be clear when dry) and then paint your frame

Miss3 painting her frame and enjoying every second of it

Mr6's finished frame... we just need a photo to go in it now

Miss3's

If you cant get similar cheap frames, you could try making some with paddle pop sticks... we only had 2 frames and wanted to make some for our Papa so we made these... would be good to add some magnets to the back and place on the fridge... and you dont have to out a photo in there, a drawing, painting or what you love about dad or grandpa could go in there too :)

Father's Day gifts

There are still 2 weeks til father's day, but we start early just in case :) We found this glass coaster photo set for $7.99 last week and I grabbed them knowing they'd come in handy for something. The kids got a glimpse and decided they'd be great for a present for dad. I wanted to put their photos in them, but they wanted an art piece in there for dad.

we dipped toothbrushes in watered down food colours and flicked the brush with our fingers along the head of the brush to create a colourful background for our pictures

 * warning- this is messy, but fun and kids love it!!

glass coaster with removable slot for photo

we cut a bit from our brush flicked paper, drew on it and put in into the slots on the coaster... our dad will love these and I like that we will have an art piece to look at on the dinner table too :)

Pom Poms

I ventured to Spotlight the other day that place is a black hold for hard earnt money!! and found these pom pom making tools... this might seem odd but I had no idea there were actual tools to make pom poms!! I just remember my mum making them and showing us how with a cardboard version. The tools were marked down so I thought I'd get them and test them out with the kids. They are no different to using cardboard the way mum did it also a more cost effective way! and with Christmas in mind I thought my kids would enjoy making them as new decorations for the small tree we put up in their room. If you dont own a 'tool' I'd suggest using cardboard and simply cutting out a donut shape (size depends on how big you want your pom pom), and then  folding it in half and wrapping the wool around it. Then you have that gap on the outer edge to cut along, it would work much the same way as the crescent shaped tool we bought. Oh, one last thing... dont purchase the wool I did... it looked lovely but made a huge mess as we cut it (too fluffly) and was more mop like than pom pom like... just regular wool works much better!!

tool 1

instructions

tool 2

instructions

Mr6 and tool 1 all wrapped up ready to cut

floppy pom pom

Even Miss3 could do it :)

smaller pom pom worked better with our flimsy wool

Coloured Sugar

I made coloured sugar today to decorate some cupcakes. I wasn't sure how much I'd need, but I made way more than I needed for the cupcakes so had to think up another use... and cocktails came to mind :) I made the kids sugar rimmed galsses for their mocktails with juice and lemonade and then by accident tipped some sugar into the glass which changed the colour of the drink and made it really pretty! I LOVE when things like that happen... mistakes that look good :).
All you need is some white sugar, a zip lock bag and a few drops of food colouring mixed in. Seal the bag and massage the sugar until all the food colour is massaged into it. I'm thinking this could come in handy when the kids have eaten all the sprinkles and I go to decorate something!! Sugar keeps for ages too so I'll pull it out when soime cookies are made, and possibly to sprinkle on ice cream treats for them :)

Marshmallow & coloured sugar flowers on cupcakes

see the blue at the bottom? Looked nicer in the light but you get the picture.