The Silhouette

My new love. Bon got it for me in February/March-ish and I just got it out of the box and downloaded the software. LOVE IT!!! I've only done vinyl with it so far...no fancy fabric transfers or anything.

http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/default.aspx

Neverending....chores!

I don't know about you, but in our house, it seems like I am stuck doing most of the work. Bon does a lot and does what he can. But the whining and moaning I get from the kids when I ask them to do something is beyond ridiculous!

So in an effort to teach responsibility, we sat down as a family and decided on what chores the kids could and should do.

During that brainstorm session, I was trying to figure out the best way to implement these chores. Aha! I had some little Halloween bucket thingys...they had a jack-o-lantern on it and a black cat....I picked four different spray paint colors I already had and put a couple of coats on to cover the Halloween. Then I took my trusty Silhouette (I finally hooked it up and used it and and now I'm in love, can you tell??) and put them on their buckets.

I also had a huge packet of popsicle sticks. I wrote the chores on both sides of the stick and each chore is on three sticks. So while it looks like they have a TON of chores to do from that picture, they really don't. :)

So once I get this going, I hope to have them do the ones that should be habits, like brushing their teeth, making their bed, picking up dirty clothes, done every day (obviously) and then they can pick at random another set number (5?) of chores to do. At the end of each day, they count up their chores and will put the same number of buttons in a different jar. Once the button jar gets so full, we will do something fun as a family.

I haven't decided where to hang these buckets yet. Probably in the laundry room somewhere.

I really hope this works.

End of Year Teacher gifts

For the end of the school year, I decided to purchase 8x8 glass pans, use my Silhouette to make a stencil, buy some Armour Etch and make the kids' teachers their own engraved pan! I made the etch on the outside bottom, so that when you look through the dish, it reads properly. I don't have a picture of the final outcome, but it turned out well! I made a batch of brownies in each pan, covered them with foil, used a recipe card to write a note (I used a catchy phrase with "etch" in there, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was!) and tied it on with ribbon.

It really was an easy and fairly cheap gift! In total, the gift cost under $8! Not too shabby!!

Cups galore!

I am soooo tired of having a billion and eight cups on my counter. I have 3 kids that can get their own cups, plus a couple of their friends...so that should be...5? 6? cups max?

Here is a typical view of my kitchen island.




And this is how I solved my issue with Cups Galore!



I got the idea from another blog where they had painted their kids initials on a windowsill (that must have been low), but I just used my Silhouette and some black vinyl. Not too shabby and so far it has cut down on Cups Galore!!