Document your Travels

I LOVE to travel. I love to take pictures. In my office, I made my own "travel" wall. I purchased a shadow box at Michaels, and cheap frames (that I will always be able to find). As we travel, we try to find a keepsake from that location to set in the shadow box, and we add a new picture to our ever growing (I hope) wall.

My sister loves to travel. She's been a lot more places than I. She opted to hang a large map pinpointing all the locations she has been. She then added a few clocks of some of her more "special" places, and a vinyl quote.

Just throwing it out there for others that perhaps love to travel and reminisce about going somewhere again soon!

Birthday Chart

I gave this to my mom (the grandma) last year. It's a fun way to keep track of all the extended family members birthdays. Her home has a lot of wood, so I wanted it to blend with her decor. You could make this really fun and colorful instead.

What you need:
1. Everyone's birthdays.
2. 1 piece of large wood to hang from and put the months on.
3. Many small pieces of wood to put the names on. Mine are 2" wide.
4. Hooks: Find at Home Depot. 5/8" "Hooks & Eyes". Good luck finding anything besides brass. Place a hook on top, and a hook on bottom, that way you can add family members anywhere in the line whenever new members marry in, or are born!
5. Lettering: Of course, I used vinyl again, but you could just handwrite the names.

TIP: While you're making this, make lots of EXTRA small woods. Then, when you need to add someone new, you will have it all ready to go!

TIP 2: You could color coordinate for families. I just did blue for boys, green for girls, but you COULD give each family a different color. In that I have 7 siblings, I opted NOT for this option. :)

Chicken Wire

I had some of this in my basement...and what a fun way to use it! Can be cut to any shape or size, light weight for easy hanging!

Chicken Wire
Clothes Pins
Knick-knacks and photos.

The perfect addition to my already crazy mudroom!

Scrap Books

This post is for my sister in law Stephanie. Last week she called me with a vinyl order. I was in the car, and wrote down her order, and email on the back of a receipt...it's all I could find! Did I complete the order? No. Did I forget? Yes. Why? Because I never have anything to write on! That was the inspiration for these. Little mini books made from scrap pieces of paper. I even had Beck draw me a cover for one of them. The covers I then laminated (if you don't have a laminator, use contact paper), added some plain paper for my filler, stapled in the middle, and wala! I made enough for each glove box, my purse, the diaper bag, and a few extras to stash next to the phones in the house...

Lego Organization

I realize the only way to really play lego's is to dump the enitre box onto the floor so you can sift through the pieces to find the one's you need...BUT, I don't like this method. So, I have organized the pieces that aren't really building pieces into little tupperwares. It works great. My boys many times just want to play with the lego "guys" and now, they can go straight to the tupperware for that, the whole box doesn't get dumped on the floor.

ALSO, patterns for lego's. Putting them in a binder in plastic sleeves has made such an improvement! We've lost many other patterns, and the boys ask me to recreate their car they once built - uh, not gonna happen. Anyway, it's a nice way to keep them all in 1 place for the kids to find.

Chores

Growing up, my mom was always trying a "new plan" to get us to do our chores. Some worked better than others. At the moment we're trying this route. Seems to be working!!

Each child has a certain # of cards with chores. Mom decides how much these chores are worth, and gives them a # on the back. Mine range from 1 to 4. Then, throughout the day, as "child" completes the chore, they turn the card over to reveal the # on the back. At the end of the day, we add up the #'s, and give that many cottonballs to put in the jar. As the jar fills up over time, "child" earns accordingly. I used "treat", "toy", and "outing" as my incentives, but really you could use whatever you like.

One thing I love about this system is that during the day if someone does something wrong, I can say that I'm going to take a cottonball out of the jar. It works SO well!

If you want my same "chores" I can email them to you. My sis-in-law used velcro instead of nails to hang the chores, it's up to you!!

Cleaning

It's not the most looked forward to part of my day, and for a while, I was feeling overwhelmed. I've known about the "fly lady" for years, but I finally took to heart her idea, and it's working!!!

FlyLady's Basic Weekly Plan
I want you to think about the things you need to do every week. Select which days you want to do these things, put it on your calendar for next week, and stick to it. Make an appointment with yourself LOL! With the Basic Weekly Plan, we decide on a day to do things and stick to it. I never knew how much this would help my lack of organization. Knowing that I do my shopping on Thursday, my cleaning on Monday and my desk day on Friday allows me the freedom to schedule things according to the day. When you know what the day is, you know what has to be done. It is another way to be on autopilot. - FlyLady

Mine is simple, but it's working, and as I get into the routine, I'll add more to it. I used to find myself deep cleaning more often, or knowing that "AH! I better ____ before so and so comes over!" Now, I know things have had a deep cleaning weekly, not all the same day, but it makes it SO much easier to do a quick pick up at the last minute and feel good...

Allergy Safe Snacks

If you know us, you know our oldest son has a life threatening allergy to peanuts (and other nuts). I was SO nervous with him starting school. I looked all over the internet for ideas, and didn't find much. One of my biggest concerns was having other children bring "birthday treats" into the classroom. I made these boxes and gave them to his teacher full of fun snacks just for my son. This way he feels special, I feel good knowing he's not going to be given something contaminated, and it makes the teachers job SO much easier.