Family History activity for children who can't read yet

 This idea came to mind when I was thinking about how to combine flowers with family history.  An adult who can read would need to help the child follow the prompts. You will want to will want to print it double sided and flip on short edge. I designed this to be a little booklet. You will need 2 sheets of paper to print the booklet. The order of the pages will look a little funny but they do all line up when you stack and fold them up. I hope this helps those who want to help little ones do their family history who cant read yet.

Here is the link to the booklet

My Family History in flowers

Easter Drawing

 I have been struggling with how to have Christ be the focus during Easter. There are so many fun activities that are planned, like the egg hunts for example. However, these activities have nothing to do with Jesus. 

 A friend on mine shared with me an activity that her family did where there were twelve different items inside each egg and each one tells part of the story about Jesus Christs Crucifixion and resurrection. Here is a drawing I did inspired by that thought.

Designing a Prom dress

How do you design a Prom dress that is exactly what you picture in your head? This can be a hard feat to accomplish. Its even harder when you are trying to figure out what is someone elses head. 

This is the obstacle I ran into this last month with our oldest daughter. She had drawn out some thumb nail sketches for me after verbally describing them to me, I had not clue what she wanted. I have seen this happen many times in the past when one person is a seamstress and the other person doesn't know sewing terms or fabrics.

So how did we resolve our communication difficulty. I drew up a Croquis with my daughters measurements in mind. If you are asking what is a Croquis? It is a quick sketch of a fashion figure. There are many good tutorials out there on how to create them. Taking the time to draw them is absolutely worth your time and effort.

After drawing a croquis of our oldest daughter, I took a blank piece of paper and laid it on top of her croquis. I sketched out different versions of what I thought she was saying she wanted. Each design was on a different sheet of paper. I also added a few extra drawings in different cuts that I thought she might also like but since she doesn't know enough about sewing yet might not think to ask for in her design.

This method made it so much easier to communicate about what she was picturing because she could say things like, I like these lapels, those buttons and could see where the skirt would hit her legs without having to cut or sew anything. This is fantastic because as usual I am on a time crunch and don't have enough of the final fabric to do several versions of it. 

Here are some of the sketches so you can see what I mean.

I hope this helps you save a lot of time.

Alternative plant poles

I love gardening! It's exciting to watch a plant sprout and gain strength. My family loves eating the fruits and vegetables more them watching them grow. The down side to gardening is the expense.  A few dollars here and a few dollars there and there is only so much money to go around. 

Last fall I was planting peas and wondering how I was going to stake them? I was out of poles for the peas to climb. As I was thinking about this need I was looking at our yard and I noticed some of our flowers. We have these plants that have long stems that bloom flowers all along the stem and I thought those stems are as straight as dowels you buy at the store.

 I started wondering if I cut these stems off the plant after they were done flowering if they would be strong enough for a plant to train or curl up them. What did I have to loose, cutting off the stems wouldn't hurt the plant and if it worked I would have the poles I needed for free.

So we took our tree lopper and cut a whole bunch of these stems after they were done flowering and laid them flat to dry. It took about a month and a half . And sure enough the heavier stems were sturdy enough to use as poles for the plants to climb up. Now I don't have to keep buying these. I can just cut and dry them out every year and I will always have plenty of poles for our plants without spending any money on it.

Step#1

Cut stem after all flowering has stopped and lay on a flat dry surface to dry out.

Step#2

Wait till it is completely dry.

Step#3

Stake the plants you need and watch them climb.

Soap dispenser sludge

Why is there always water all over the bathroom counter?! It seems to pool around the soap dispenser into a disgusting sludge. How does something that's supposed to clean things end up so gross? 

This pool of soap sludge around our soap dispenser happens because of how we wash our hands as a family. It's a sticky mess that can be harder to clean if I don't get to it right away and I don't want to discourage my kids from washing their hands. If we washed them like medical professionals scrub their hands this wouldn't happen. 

As a family we have talked about shaking out our hands in the sink before drying. We have talked about wiping down the counter after drying our hands. We have tried leaving a towel right next to the the soap dispenser as a reminder to clean up after washing. We have tried placing a wash cloth under the soap dispenser to catch all of the spilled water but the cloth gets saturated very quickly and doesn't catch all of the water what was spilled from hand washing. We have tried placing a hand towel under the soap dispenser and this worked a little better because it captured all of the water but it still ended up a big sopping mess. 

One day I was washing some dishes and placing them on the drying mat when it occurred to me that those mats are really good at absorbing the water without getting really gross quickly. This thought made me pause and ask myself "Why couldn't those serve the same purpose in the bathroom?"

 I bought some extra mats from the dollar tree and placed the whole mat under the soap dispenser and I watched to see what would happen. Sure enough it absorbed all the water and didn't get sticky like the washcloths or towels did. When I changed out the drying mats I could pick up the mat and it wouldn't drip water all over the place. I could easily clean where the mat was when I changed them out.

After living with this for a few months my husband asked if I could cut the mats down so that they were not hanging into the sink or over the edge of the counter. I looked at the edges of the mats and thought I could do the same stitch on my sewing machine. I cut them to fit the shape of the area they were supposed to absorb water and zig zag stitched up the edges. 

 

We are still working as a family on not dripping all over the bathroom counter but at least we know that everyone is  washing their hands and I am always happy about that.

Planning school clothes shopping

 School clothes shopping can take a lot of time, emotional energy and money. Over the years I have slowly developed a system that works for our family to cut down on the time it takes, lower the frustration level with finding what we are looking for, and save money.

Step#1

Grab a piece of paper and pencil. Fold the piece of paper in half vertically. I write the name of the child at the top of the paper. On one side of the paper I write NO ALTERATIONS. On the other side of the page I write ALTERATIONS NEEDED.

Step#2

I have each child try on each item of clothing. If it is a shirt I have them lift their arms to see if their stomach shows or if it too short on the arms. If it's shorts or pants I check to see if it is too short on their ankles, or legs. I also check to see if it is too tight on their bottom or waist. If it is now too small in some way and cannot be altered then it goes into my fabric stash for repurposing. If it can be altered to make it still work then I write it down on the ALTERATIONS NEEDED side of the paper and what it needs to make the clothing work again. If the clothes still fit and need no alterations then I write it down on the NO ALERATIONS side of the page. This process of having the kids try on all their clothes does take a large bit of time. However, I have found this is a far better use of time and money because we are not buying clothes that are not needed. At the end of trying on everything we then take the two lists and see what is missing from their wardrobe and make a list of what they are in need of for the next school year.

Step#3

I have the kids hop on Pinterest and pin what they think is cool to wear. Then we look at the pictures together so that I know if it's the color of the shirt, the fabric, the cut of the shirt or shorts etc. This saves so much time and frustration on my part. So many times in the past I thought that I knew based on what they said what they were looking for in their own personal style and I was often wrong. 

Step#4

Take the list of what is needed and the images of what they are looking for and go shopping.

Step#5 

Alterations. I take my list of the clothes that need altered and to that I add clothes that are not quite right at the store that I need to alter. For example, one of my daughters has some sensory issues and so it is very hard to find the clothes in the style she likes and in the right fabrics without paying prices way outside of our budget. The solution is to find clothes as close as we can get and then have her print out a picture of the clothing item from her inspiration board on Pinterest. I pin the picture to the clothing we bought so I know exactly what is desired of the clothing item. This way there is no way to miscommunicate what she wants the clothes to look like and no way to get the fabric wrong because she touched it when she picked it out at the store.

 

 It does take a lot of time on alterations sometimes but its worth it because she will wear what is in her closet rather the same 3 outfits all year because she cant stand everything else. We are very happy with this process for our kids with sensory needs and our budget, it saves us so much time, energy, and money. This process may not be for everyone but hopefully this can give you ideas for something that will work for your family.

Fathers Day Present- Tackle his To-Do List

 Every year I struggle to figure out what to do or buy for my husband for Fathers Day and this year was no different. How do you give a present to someone who already has what he wants unless it's a really expensive item.

 I was mulling this over one day while working through my To-Do list for the day and it occurred to me ," I can take stuff off his To-Do List." If the kids and I can do the stuff that is on his list then that will lighten his load. I knew of things that he had been saying since we moved into our new house that he needed to do. There are always things that weigh on him that he wants to get done but something else more pressing always gets in the way of his getting to that task. I already knew what some of those things were because every time we would pass by that thing he would say something like," Ah, I really need to get that taken care of. I am going to do that this weekend." 

I starting making a list off the top of my head of all the things I have heard him say he needed to get done that he hadn't gotten to because life happens. I know that those things weigh on him emotionally and mentally. Lightening what is weighing him down I thought would be a great gift. I continued to write things down in my bullet journal as I would hear him mention things he wanted to get done. 

Now I just needed an opportunity to get them done without him feeling bad about someone else doing what he had labeled as his responsibility. The opportunity came when his father needed help moving over Fathers Day weekend.

As soon as he left I called the kids together for a family meeting and explained my idea for Fathers Day presents this year. The kids were on board. I broke down his To-Do list into tasks we had to complete each day in order to get it all done while their father was gone. Each day we worked at the tasks on the list till they were done. I was so proud of how hard they worked, they put in 8-10 hours of work most days with me. 

I took before pictures and after pictures in case he didn't notice because he was to tired from moving his Dad. Here are some of the things that were on his To-Do list.

Before-Pruning the hedge

After-Pruning the hedge

Before-Limb hanging over the driveway

After-Limb handing over the driveway

                Before-Moss on stone bench(Its alive!)                                                                         After-Moss on stone bench(Its dyeing!)

                            Before-Weed whack 1 side of the house                                                                       After- Weed whack 1 side of the house

 

Before- Other side of the house; prune, rake leaves, weed whack 

                                                    After-Other side of the house; prune, rake leaves, weed whack

                                                                        Before-Prettier yard edge; move bushes to fill in gaps and replace dead trees

                                                                                    After-moved bushes to fill in gaps and replaced dead trees

                            Before-Weed by hand blueberry bushes and strawberry plants

                                        After-Weeded by hand the blueberry bushes and strawberry plants

             Before- Trim the bushes in front of the house                                 After-Trimmed the bushes in the front of the house