Monday, March 25, 2013

DIY Chore Chart

Hi, I'm Sarah and I blog over at The Winthrop Chronicles. I am so excited to be here with you today! I am a stay at home mom of three little ones. I love it and stay pretty busy, but have always loved crafting and decorating, so I do that any chance I get. I would love for you to stop by my blog for my Share It Link Party on Tuesdays or follow me on Facebook or Pinterest!

My kids are getting to the age where they can be in charge of completing chores during the day. So I made this chore chart to help keep track of the kids chores and also a reward system for when they do their chores or other good things. {They each get to put a little pebble in their jar when they do their chore for that day, and if they are disobedient, then they get a pebble taken out, when they fill their jar they get to pick a prize like going out for ice cream or having a movie night, etc.} Overall I think it works and will work even better when the kids are older.

To Make:
first. Cut some slats of wood from an old pallet or you could use regular common board that you have stained.
second. Nail some scrap wood to the back to keep all of the pallet slats together.
third. Buy these pipe clamps in the plumbing section of a hardware store. You want to make sure that they are the same size as the little mason jars you use. 
Then attach them to your wood. I just hammered a nail in the clamp. You could also screw it in, but I think the nail was easier and would work fine. If you did a bigger jar, you may want to use a screw or do two to make sure that it supports the weight.  
I bought some mason jars from Hobby Lobby. You can slide the mason jar in the clamp and just tighten the clamp to get the mason jar to fit snug.
fourth. For the paint, I just taped off the areas I wanted painted white. {I really like frogger tape, I think it's way better than the blue painter's tape} After the paint dried, I sanded it a little with a medium grit sandpaper to get a distressed look.
fifth. To get the words on there, you could use vinyl lettering or stenciling, but I chose to do a stamping technique that I often use. You just type up the words you want in PowerPoint or something and then reverse the image so that it appears backwards {don't forget this step because when you transfer the words to your wood they will appear backwards if you don't switch it on the computer} Then print it on to the shiny side of some freezer paper in your printer. Immediately press the wet ink side of the paper on to your boards. When you lift up the paper, you will be left with a light stamp on your boards. For some reason, this appeared very light {I think some of the ink absorbed in to the wood} so I went back and filled it in with a sharpie. {If this is your first time stamping something like this, you should definitely practice on another piece of paper or something instead of your wood because there is a bit of a learning curve}
sixth. I hot glued these metal clips to the board. This way I can change out their chore lists at any time. I also covered the clips with some washi tape.
seventh. I picked up some pebbles from Ikea and we were all set!

1 comment:

BonBon Rose Girls Kristin said...

It turned out so cute! Such a great idea!