Projects

In between sewing and crafting baby things, I've been working on projects around the house. Yes, I have certainly been a busy bee! But I'm determined to get some of these things done 'cause if I can't do it with two little ones, I sure can't do it with three! I ran across a blog recently named "mommy by day, crafter by night" (at least I think that was it) and it's so true! Of course, I get a couple nap times during the week too when Will is occupied with other things. Anyway, on to the projects.
First is a behavior chart for Will. He's been in a funk lately and is just struggling to listen and follow basic rules that have been in place for awhile. He did this before Maggie was born too so hopefully it's a phase and he'll be back to normal after baby Jacob arrives. Until then, we instituted this behavior chart. I've really wanted one for a long time, but never got around to it. While perusing a link party one night, I ran across  Snickety Things blog whose author recently instituted her own chart and routine. This gave me some good inspiration and I was ready to tackle it. I used her idea for "working," "looking good" and "wow" plus her behavior categories, "chores," "room," "attitude" and "listening" but I'm not quite ready to institute a money reward system with Will and wanted to make a magnet board instead of the door hangers she used. I have been perusing thrift stores for awhile now in search of baby items and haven't had luck with those, but finally came across some other great buys for other projects, one of which was a frame for Will's chart. Here's what I came up with:

Three categories for behavior and four areas he's expected to behave, as mentioned above. I made the chart and smiley faces on the computer, printed them out and cut the faces. I thought a simple 'stop light' color code would work nicely, particularly because Will loves green and that's the best one to achieve. He has responded really well to this so far- having something visual helps both of us measure his progress/behavior throughout the day and he's well aware of the consequences for receiving reds and the rewards for receiving greens, particularly if he gets four of them. And he has a couple times- not surprisingly, the first time was when he spent the day with Daniel last week when I took Maggie to CRS.
So where's the magnet board I mentioned and the frame I bought at the thrift store? WELL, we bought a small piece of steel at Lowe's along with magnet tape, but the piece is too big for the frame. We thought it would be, but they don't cut the steel to size and I decided to get it on the premise that our friend, Brett, had something to cut it with. He doesn't. Well, Daniel thinks it works really well on the fridge, so I'll either return the steel or save it for another project. Hopefully I can use the fabric I cut to size for something else too. :)

This next project was completed last month but I haven't written about it yet. It's a camera purse and is inexpensive and super easy. These are all over the internet right now, but my original inspiration came from here. One of the things I miss most about my point and shoot camera is that it fit nicely in my purse and could go anywhere. When Will dunked it in water, I decided to save for a DSLR and about 9 months later had enough to purchase it! I love the camera, but it sure isn't space savvy like my little point and shoot. Many months ago I ran across this tutorial and knew I had to try it. Eventually I bought a purse, some foam and used fabric scraps to complete the purse. I didn't follow her tutorial exactly, in fact when the time came, I just winged it. I like hers better, so I may add more foam and update my purse. Here's what I came up with:

The best part was I wasn't worried about seams looking pretty or precise, I just closed the fabric around the foam- it's just sitting in the purse after all! I definitely recommend doing this, but follow her tutorial, it came out better than my "winging it" version! Come back soon to see some other projects I've recently completed!