Ready... Set... Summer?

Oh what do you do in the summertime... when your house is full of kids?

In the past, my summers were pretty hard to manage.  I was either pregnant or nursing for six years straight.  Focusing on growing babies and keeping them alive past one year did not leave me a lot of time to think about doing anything else.  I struggled to get out of the house and to not rely on screens to keep my toddlers occupied without giant messes that stressed me out.  I was really grateful to my brother for rescuing my oldest child from my toddler/baby world by taking him on outings with his family during that time.  The main event every summer was going to visit our family in Utah and other than that I was pretty lazy.  Sometimes I would buy one of those big books of school worksheets with the intention of having my kids work in it everyday.  I paid around $8 for them to work about 4 pages out of it maybe 2 or 3 times PER CHILD.  That means I paid $24 for 3 different grade levels and used about 12-16 pages total.  What a waste.

To help get us out of the house more, I made a goal last year to write down activities to do on a schedule for the week every week.  I committed to myself that I only needed to spend 2 hours doing the outing and that made it easier to stick to our plan.  We had purchased passes to the Safari Park Zoo for the year (with parking) so I wanted to go at least once a week.  Plus the beach was on the list.  For several years I went to the beach only once a year or sometimes not at all.  This was mostly because my little ones could not swim--1 mom and 3 potentials for drowning are not a good combination.  Fortunately, I got my kids swimming lessons so I wouldn't be afraid to take them once a week finally.  We were also lucky to have someone at church pass a sign up around to all the pool owners willing to have people come over on Tuesday each week.  Only a couple people took a turn twice and we could visit the pool once a week too.  It was an awesome summer last year.

Instead of buying an expensive worksheet book I pulled out a blank composition notebook and wrote "Family Journal" on it.  I thought, "If I get them to write a journal entry, maybe a few sentences about what we did on our outings and draw a picture, then they are getting something educational out of it right?"  Boy, was that difficult.  My oldest ones agonized over what to write and my younger ones dictated long things to me that barely talked about what we did and then drew a picture of what they talked about.  Well, I did get them to write a couple times so that is something.  We filled about 10 pages of the notebook.  So yeah.  Pretty much the same amount of effort and consistency.  But I did get them out of the house more and we loved it.  I am definitely planning to do a similar goal of scheduling outings this year.  But I have been wondering, "How will I help them to keep up on their math and writing skills?"

Out of the blue...a couple weeks ago I got an email from someone asking if I would consider doing guest content on my blog.  I was actually extremely flattered.  I feel like a very, very small fish in this ginormous internet pond even if I have been trying to swim around a little more in Pinterest, and Etsy.  So I am pleased to introduce the few of you who read this to Education.com.  I looked through their website and it is very easy to navigate and filled with plenty of great content.  They have free printable worksheets, learning games, and even simple lesson explanations of the skills.

Warmer weather is right around the corner. Why not celebrate with some summery reading practice? For little ones, read this with them to promote early word and shape recognition. Visit Education.com for more learning games, resources, and activities.

If you have had similar experiences to mine then you probably know what I am talking about.  So how am I going to make sure they actually do some of these worksheets?  Well fortunately, I got back into my chore chart habit a few months ago.  Remember my post about teaching my kids to do chores?  My youngest is 4 so it was time to get back to the original way of doing it.  That first version with the "Have To" and the "Can Do" lists really works well for the younger kids.  And I really had to make 2 separate ones because the 6 year old needed to work on his chore skills too.  My 10 year old enjoyed helping me make a couple "wallets" out of card stock to hold their dollars and we taped them to the wall of their bedroom.

As you can see, I personalized them.  I let them pick their favorite colors for the highlights and then I let them pick a bathroom chore to learn.  When I had one child I was ambitious enough to teach him to clean the whole bathroom but now I have 5 kids... so they can share the bathroom chores.  Here is a generic version I made in case you would like to use this for yourself

I learned from the theory of motivation that we are not just motivated by pleasure or pain but also by what we know to be true and by having choices.  I use this knowledge to focus on helping them know that they CAN do their chores and that they have CONTROL over their choice to do them.  When my youngest says it is hard I say "I know it is hard and you can do it!"  When he cries that he doesn't want to do it I reply, "You don't have to do it.  You just don't get screens until you do."  Then I walk away and let him decide if he wants to do it and get screens.  About 90% of the time he decides to do it about 10 minutes later.  The other 10% he ends up taking a nap and then doing it when he wakes up.  I don't make my standards impossibly high either.  For the first month I did help them with each chore and focused on how they could get it done on their own but I could be available to help them for a minute or two.
This is how the 4 year old made his bed completely on his own this morning:

4 year old bed making skill

It is a sheet because he didn't want the big blanket.  He likes his baby blankets still (which are piled up on his pillow) and he is warm enough at night so I can let it be that way until he is ready to trade for a bigger blanket.
Here is how the 6 year old made his bed entirely on his own this morning:

6 year old bed making skill

I love that he lines his dolls up on his pillow there and his precious 10 color pen that he purchased yesterday is sitting in a place of honor where he can access it when he is ready to draw.

I also added in a couple ways to earn dollars for "non-chore" skills that my young kids need to work on as well.  Playing nicely together outside for 30 minutes and playing a board game or card game nicely (no tantrums or fighting) for 30 minutes.  The learning curve has taken a month but my young boys finally don't whine that making their bed is hard work or brushing their teeth is hard work--at least not every day.  As a side note, for me, some days making dinner feels as difficult as lifting a mountain. while others I can put together a 3 course meal with ease, so I can relate and have some compassion for their perspective.

I also found that for my older kids, who don't need the dollar system, it still helps for them to have a visible checklist to know what I need them to get done.  So I created a morning and evening checklist for them and put some ambiguous things like "Put away 10 things" for the bedroom and "Put away 15 items" for the general house and "1 Kitchen chore."  They get to control a lot about those directions like which items they put away and which kitchen chore they do (which can include preparing a meal for the family).  They are old enough to have that kind of freedom.  Plus, I could put more personal reminders on there for acne care and flouride application.

I have a separate one for the middle child too which is like a combination of the Responsible kid checklist and the younger kid checklist.  She is young enough to still need the dollar system but old enough to have more chores for morning and evening so that is all the explanation I want to give right now.

I realized the need to make a homework slot on the younger kid's "have to" list because next year they will be doing homework and I want to start the learning curve on that NOW when I have 6 more hours to help them come to terms with it.  The best thing I have learned about teaching young kids work is to keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time.  That is why I am excited about  Education.com.  This website has free printable worksheets from pre-k up to 5th grade.  No need to shell out $30 for 4 different grade levels.  You can print a worksheet as needed.  This is the perfect answer for me and my family.

In the past when I tried putting a big book in front of my child and asked him to work on a page, it was intimidating.  If he didn't like the page he would want to flip through the book and then we spent 10 minutes just trying to find one that looked good to him.  Instead I can print a couple pages or just 5 for the week like the teachers do for homework packets and tell him we will work on one a day.  Plus their website has games and explanations for the skills.  Even my older kids can keep up on their math and reading comprehension skills and be better prepared for next year.  A lot of you probably know about Starfall and PBS kids websites and I love those too.  It is always nice to have some variety and choices.  I love free content.  Let me know what you do to get out of the house and keep up on your kid's learning during the summer in the comments.  I hope you have a great summer!

New Free Printable

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I get lots of opportunities to use my creative talents to serve others.  Currently, I am serving in the Young Women leadership in my area  and the church as a whole has a new scripture theme each calendar year.  For 2019 the theme is:

John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments."  

I was asked to look at it and consider making a lettering design for it.  I pondered on it for a while and decided that message I wanted most to portray is that when we keep the commandments we are protected and that God gave us commandments because He loves us and wants us to be able to return to Him.  Inversely, when we keep the commandments, we show God that we love Him and want to be with Him too.  So here is my contribution to the many other choices available to use for displaying this scripture:

I could go into the details of how hard I worked all this week to create the design and how many sheets of paper I had to doodle on and practice the layout and the details inside the letters...(yawn) but, I would really rather go lie down now.  Maybe I will upload pics of the process later.  Just be glad I finished it.  ;)

Space Saver Shelf

During the summer I expressed a desire to my husband that I have had for years and finally got to make it!  Forever ago I saw some cool space saving ideas and one was a narrow shelf that fit behind a bathroom door. Just the right size to hold make up and knick-knacks and tools for getting ready in the morning.  Our tiny bathroom has no room to hold my curling iron or blow dryer or make-up so I have been storing them in my closet...that's right...my Bedroom Closet.  Imagine wanting to blow dry and curl your hair and put on make-up and then having to walk from the bathroom around your bed and open your closet door to get out your stuff and carry it all back to the bathroom with no counter space.  Bleh...  I usually only did that on Sunday when I had time for such foolishness.  

I did have my handy makeup travel bag from Mary Kay hanging on the towel rack, but sometimes it would get knocked down from  someone grabbing the towel and ruin my blush, or eye shadow, or foundation powder... :'( *sniff.

So I saw a post on facebook years ago--one of those links that say "20 storage ideas to save space" or some thing like that and one of them was a shelf behind the bathroom door and then I dreamed of a day when I could store my makeup and hairdryer and curling iron on a shelf... behind the bathroom door.  

*Cue singing*  

"I've been dreaming of a shelf right there, where I can easily curl my hair..."

Huh?  You don't hear the Disney orchestra playing in my head?  Oh, ok...

Anyway, I got some leftover pallet wood from a craft night and told my husband I wanted to build a shelf to go behind the bathroom door.  He was a little skeptical at first but I explained that it didn't have to be ultra fancy.  I could sand it and paint it and I just wanted him to help me put it together.  I got a couple more pallets too but we learned that he didn't really have the right tools for taking them apart without splintering a lot of wood.  He got a couple decent long pieces though and we got to work.

Here is a picture the sanded wood before we put it all together.  We laid it on the table and I put items on it to give us an idea of how to space the shelves:

He decided to drill guide holes before putting the screws in to prevent cracking and it worked great.  I also made sure we used a leveler for each shelf as we assembled it.  I started painting with plain old acrylic paint we had on hand.  I love creating :D  To make the clouds I used a white and dabbed the brush on board like I was stippling with a pencil.  Once it a while I would dip in the blue and then the white and stipple and then I dip in the white and then the blue.  I love how it created layers to look like fluffy clouds:

We decided to add a back to it for aesthetic appeal.  We had some masonite board that my husband had kept.  (He likes to save random things like that and it comes in handy sometimes)  So I painted that too.  So much fun!
I used a fine tipped paint brush for the stars and just varied outlines and dots to make it look like they were glowing and sparkling.  Finished masterpiece before we put it in place.  Ignore the pile of clothes on the floor I was excited to get it installed and filled up with my stuff:

I found some polyurethane to give it protective finish since we have no window in the bathroom.  It gets pretty moist in there.

Wah-Lah!!  Here it is in all its glory!  Loaded and ready to use.  I LOVE having it.  And when the bathroom door is open you can't even tell it is there.

Oh it may be hard to see but the shine is because my husband had some plastic (Yay for random useful things again!) he cut and sanded to make it spill proof.  All the shelves have a transparent guardrail thanks to his handywork.

Have a great day and feel free to comment or share your space saving ideas that you use.  Maybe I can find something new to dream about!

Ahem...Ahem...I have an announcement

It's HERE!  I started my own Etsy Shop to sell my creations.  For the last 3 months I have been studying and learning about how Etsy works and preparing my first 10 items for sell.  I was pushing to get things up and running quickly so I am beginning with digital downloads first but I hope to expand to selling printed items and mailing them out.  Here is a link to my shop:
Creative Cache Shop

I also hope to get requests for more designs.  And I have an email just for my business:  michellecreativecache@gmail.com

My husband helped me get some things to streamline my work.  Check out my fancy work station with a glass tabletop desk.  When I get a pencil sketch close to the way I like it, I find it much more efficient to trace with the ink.

The chair was an amazing find at the local thrift shop.  Totally a blessing from the Lord.  I just felt like going on a particular afternoon and was led to check the furniture section and there it was for $15.  It curves well to support my back and it is a major bonus that it matches the wood tones in my bedroom so well!

My husband I had just painted the kids rooms and built new bunk beds for our growing boys.  The old beds were both toddlers and on their last legs.  Rather than throw them away he made a quick shelf to go above my desk so I could have my art supplies easily accessible.  He offered to trim it down more but I decided to go with it for now and decide later if we want to make any changes.  For now it fills my needs just fine.

Also I wanted to get better scans and be able to scan full sizes for the larger work.  So we shopped around and found a brand new laser printer/scanner/copier that can scan up to 1200 dpi and size 11X17.  It can even print size 11X17.  So I am now looking for quality ledger paper so I can print the Believe in God and Trust in the Lord pieces in all their beautiful glory at full size.

I found that 1200 DPI is a huge file size for the artwork I am doing so it makes more sense to follow the standard of most Etsy shop sellers and use 600 DPI.  I saw a big difference in the quality of the scans compared to my old printer.  So I started with making COLOR versions of some of the pieces from my free printables page.  These are all posted in my CreativeCacheShop on Etsy.  And I would love to take requests for new work so please email me with your desires for new designs.  I have some ideas that I have been working on so I will be updating frequently with new work.  And I also will be making a black and white bundle of some of the new art work and the old artwork with my better quality scanner in case people want to print and color it themselves.  Thank you for reading and please share my post!

PS.  Here is the link again since my friend suggested I add it to the end of the post:  Creative Cache Shop

Sewing Machine Miracle

Good news.  My husband fixed my sewing machine.  He found a quarter jammed in there somehow and now it works.  Huzzah, Magic Powers!

So I got in the mood to sew a couple things to add to my Christmas decor.  One was a runner to cover the top of my beautiful piano and protect it from the fun Christmas items I like to display on there.  In years past I took this piece of remnant fabric and folded the weird shapes leftover from making a vest into a rectangle and carefully arrange it on top.

I also made a cover for the media entertainment shelf.  We have our modem, Blu-ray player, Wii, and often the laptop up there for a few years now.  The shelf was originally purchased 10 years ago so I could teach our oldest how to hang clothes up when he was 4 years old.  Now the hooks for holding a rod are just an eyesore to me.  We do put the rod there and hang the stockings up on Christmas eve but the rest of the year they are not in use.

I am so pleased with it I may leave there after Christmas too.

Responsibility Training Update

About a year ago I posted this to explain how I manage chores at my house.  It worked well for a while and I was happy with it for the most part but it was tricky to manage 3 kids on one chart.  I switched to having separate checklists for a while and my kids really like having their own individual checklist instead of sharing.  So I remade my chart for the kids.  Here is what my new one looks like:


I printed one for each of the younger kids ages 8, 6, and 4.  The 4 year old has one that says go potty instead of brush hair.  I explained to the older 2 that I wanted wiggle room.  If they only get the first 3 things done before school that is good enough.  If they have time to accomplish more then that is great but we have time after school as well.  The ones with plus signs next to them are on the following chart.  Since we all have different initials I can choose to mark what chores are done by mom, dad and older brother and they can see that we are also contributing to the family as well as see what chores are available for them to do.  Because of how this printed out I had room to tape a snack sized baggie to each of their charts and I set it up in a space where I had more room to spread out in the hallway.

 Here is a picture of my set up:

You may notice I changed a couple things.  On the kitchen chores I thought I wanted to check it off everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner but we actually have room to write multiple initials when we do a second or third load of laundry so I am switching to a weekly check off like I did for the others.
My favorite thing about using plastic sheet protectors is that I can observe and make adjustments to my system as I see fit.
The other change is the dollars.  I thought I wanted different dollars for each child until I saw that I could attach the snack bags to their paper directly.  But I like this printable money because it was smaller design and it was easy for me to save and use paint to copy the $1 and make a page of just ones.  As you can see they fit in the sandwich bags easily.

The only other barrier I have run into is the shared screens like the tv and computers.  It is hard to police them when one child has done the work to earn their screen time and the others can mooch off of it by sneaking behind and watching.  That is hard to manage.  We fortunately have alternate options like smaller hand held screens that they can use.  I just have to be willing to enforce that lack of screen time when it hasn't been earned consistently and they will eventually choose to do their work.  Also I am willing to exchange the family dollars for quarters which comes in handy when they get book order forms from school.  I found that I need versatility to manage multiple children at various stages of capability.  To be honest it can get tiresome to maintain this level of organization over a long period so don't be hard on yourself if you take a break from it.  The novelty wears off for everyone and when you start fresh the novelty is also renewed.

I tried for a month just doing my original dollar system one on one with my oldest daughter and she liked the extra attention and privileges.  The six year old was saying "I wish I could do the dollar system." in her mopey voice.  It got me thinking maybe I can do this with the 4 year old too.  They attacked their chores with renewed vigor when I brought this out and made it so I could focus on teaching the 4 year old to "earn some dollars."  I have days where I slip and let the TV turn on and they watch without paying.  There are consequences on me because I have to pay for not enforcing my own rules.

It is hard work being a parent.  Good luck!

Another Lettering Project

At the beginning of October my sister requested that I make her favorite scripture verse, Proverbs 3:5-6 into a art piece using my fledgling lettering skills.  I got to work right away.  My vision was to make each phrasing stand out in its own way but I wanted the words Trust in the Lord to draw the eye the most. I looked through my creative lettering book to fish for lettering styles that felt right.  First one that I knew I wanted only gave me a few letters to work from:  Back in 5 by Snowdon.  

I worked on it for 2 more months and finally got an acceptable printable form.  When I took it to Staples hoping to print it for my sister I learned that the bible is copyrighted work.  I can print it out personally but their largest paper was limited and thin and I was considering adding color to it.  So I decided to get some heavy weight art paper from Micheals and I managed to use my make shift light table to trace it out.  

Technically it was difficult to make it fit right because I used 3 pages of regular 8.5x11 inches.  I managed to get it all worked out with some minor adjustments I really liked the finished result.  My husband bought some more fine felt tipped pens with a variety of colors for my Christmas gift.  I am looking forward to working on more projects.  Below is a version you can save and print (hopefully).  I am willing to do inked versions by hand with a color or two but I would have to charge $50 per commission for time and materials it takes.  The one I did for my sister took hours.  

If you want to set up your own light table and do the work yourself here is how I did it.  I used windows Paint to divide the piece into 2 pictures (between Heart and Lean Not) and printed those out as portrait so they were able to fit on an 11x17 inch art paper.  I used water color but the multi-media would work just as well or perhaps better for felt tip ink pens.  Choose the colors you want to use.  The ones I used in T (pictured above) was a gold felt tip and calligraphy lettering pens in green and blue.  I outlined them with a gold ink pen.  I decided to use the bronze metallic felt tip pen for LORD because I wanted the gold ink pen outline to stand out more.  I used different color fine felt tip pens for the rest of the piece and ended with Direct in silver out lined in black and Paths in Black too.  Other useful tips would be to use a calligraphy pen on "and, unto thine own understanding" and then outline it in black if you can.  Or just trace the outline letters in the color of your choice and leave the inside white.  Enjoy!