Handmade Chore Charts

After weeks of disagreeing with my daughter over rules and repeating myself ... as parents often do ... I decided it was time to introduce some charts for my girl.  The idea was to put them up on the wall as a reminder for her that there are house rules, routines and chores to be done.

So this is what i've been working on for the past couple of days.  I had to think about how I was going to put this together as I didnt want to use the traditional gold stars.  We find them a little boring in this house.  So naturally I reached for my tub of fabric scraps and put some pretty tabs together that she can put on and take off herself.

this is one of the tabs.  

To make them I got myself a piece of fairly thick cardboard and something circular I could trace around to make my desired size.  I didn't want them too big, so I used the bottom of a small medicine cup.

After tracing out my circles and cutting them out, each one was then wrapped with a peice of fabric.  I placed each circular card on the fabric and cut a square shape around my circle - just so I wasn't dealing with too much material.  Once sized up, I took my glue (tiger grip) and glued each peice as I folded it in at the back.

really it's just a matter of fold and glue until all your edges are all glued in nicely.

Once thats complete I allowed them to dry over night, just to make sure it was well and truely set.

I got myself some velcro - I thought this would be the easiest for her to stick and peel.  So I cut some small pieces of the velcro that would fit nicely to the back of each circle.  I seperated the two peices (fluffy and spikey) and I glued the spikey side to the back of my circle.  And put the fluffly piece aside until I was ready to glue to the card.

this is what they are looking like at this stage ...

I also made sure I used a glue that dries clear.  And I used lots of different coloured material to make it fun for my daughter.

So that was the hardest part of the whole project ... not difficult at all really.  When I'd finished, I went onto drafting up my chore lists and wrote them up on three peices of cardboard - different colours of course.

To set up the place for each tag I simple glued the 'fluffy' piece of velcro at the end of each chore/item, etc and allowed it plenty of time to dry.

here is some with just the velcro stuck on and with some tabs pressed in place - so you can see how i've attached them.

so, you can see that i've worked my way down the items adding a tab to each.  The idea of this is for your child to put a tab on when the task is complete.

this is the other chart I was working on simultaneously.  I created a little pocket at the bottom as a storage for all the tabs.

my daughter giving it a test run ... 

And its a hit!!! ... thanks mum!

My daughter loves her new charts and couldn't wait to have a go at sticking her pretty fabric tabs on.

I hope you have enjoyed our way of spicing up and making chores fun for the kids.

See you again soon ...

Dress up up and Away....

I'm so pleased with how the little red riding hood cape came together....it really was quite a simple task.  I had to make some changes as the pattern was made for felt.  I used a cotton and hemmed all the edges, which took a little long than it would normally.  I actually prefer it to the felt.  Mother & Magician joined together and came through.....!!  My daughter absolutely loved it and was very excited to show it off at her book fair parade.  

As the day loomed.....so did the flu unfortuately.....which ultimately ended with her missing the book fair and being home with bottle of panadol , box of tissues and lots of rest and cuddles.  However, now she has a costume to add to her toyroom to play with whenever she pleases and chase that nasty wolf away!!!

Intro in a shoe box...

My life took a complete right angle about five years ago when I became a single parent to my now six year old daughter.  I have come to believe that the biggest falls result in the greatest risings.  Along my journey I have experienced abandonment which has taught me strength and courage, falling in love and losing it showed me that I do have the love within me, parenting alone trained me to believe in myself and that the sweet innocent smile of a child can wash away all your worries…even if only for a moment…that moment is worth it!  And after all this and much much more that is too deep to go into here…..I have finally reached a place in my journey where I can look up and actually say out loud “the world is my oyster, and I now ‘choose’ to do what ‘I’ want”.  And in light of this ‘choosing’…which I might add, is the best feeling in the world, you will come across all sorts of things on my blog that will make you think, possibly go all warm and fuzzy (which personally I hope you do!), there will be ‘ah ha’ moments…and well, we all know how good those are lol, and finally if you are reading this and can relate then my writing has been absolutely worthwhile and my work to inspire and support someone else has been achieved.