Showing posts with label housework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housework. Show all posts

Friday

How to Make an Attendance / Chores Wall Hanging


Here is a simple tutorial for making an

                      Attendance / Chores Wall Hanging 

for your Sunday School class or a small Children's Church, which will cost very little to make.


It has been made so that it can be reusable by changing the simple decorating feature.


It can also be easily adapted to suit a Home Chores Chart







PLANNING



I got out my card table and some card and a ruler and pencil to brainstorm the first day.





I wanted something that the children could actively take part in each week as an attendance incentive and this is what I can up with.





Some form of card or light wood for the Header, ribbons representing each week hanging down in sections of the 4 months up to Christmas.

As you can see I sort of drew part of it out and then wrote down my ideas.

But as you will see later - I modified it!




PREPARATION



If you are like me you will have various leftover crafting embellishments from other projects so you can hunt them out to help with this one.






I got a sheet of A3 coloured card.
There was no choice of colour as it was the last sheet in that size.
(Just hoped the boys would not object)


Then I folded it in 3 lengthwise but with one end section slightly narrower than the other two.


Next it was off to the computer







and I used a nice thick Alpha from my digital scrapbooking files to use for the font of the Header and this was printed on to a white A4 Card.


I made 3 because I only needed the header to be less than a third of the width of an A4 card and thought I wouldn't waste the rest of the card and I would have two headers for future use.


Then I got out my embellishments





All three containers.






Next I got out the container with the odd pieces of ribbon.






I didn't need all the pieces of ribbon to be the same colour as this would have made the Wall Hanging rather bland so I was happy to use my left over pieces which gave me a nice variety of colour.







I also needed my container with two sided sticky tape because I didn't want to mess around with glue and the tape makes it all so much quicker to do.






The next stage was getting the pieces of ribbon long enough so I placed some ribbon down flat on the table and put the larger embellishments beside to measure how long to cut the ribbon.  I would probably have 12 children at the most in the class so it just needed to be long enough to hold 12 of those butterflies plus a little bit more to be stuck inside the card.






When the 15 pieces of ribbon were cut to the right length (15 because I was going to use it for attendance on 15 different weeks before Christmas) I then had to make sure they were all ironed flat because ribbon likes to curl round when it is cut.

So now that everything was ready it was back to the card.




PRODUCTION


I folded the card over from one side towards the centre and then the narrower section over on top of that.





Then came the two sided tape






I cut a length of the tape just slightly shorter than the length of the card and pealed off one of the coatings and stuck this down on the card in far enough from the folded edge remembering that the last section to fold on top was slightly narrower.






Next I peeled off the other coating from the tape but did not stick down the last section of card because the ribbons had to be put in first.






There were 15 ribbons so I was able to start easily with placing one in the centre and pressing it down to have it stick to the card.
I had of course taken a little time when ironing the ribbons, to consider the colours I had and worked out the arrangement I wanted to place them in.






So I placed all the ribbons in the right order of colour on the table and spaced them out evenly before I stuck each one unto the tape.






Then I folded the card over and pressed it down firmly.
I did not need to put any more tape on the last part to fold over because there was enough of the tape between the ribbons for the card to stick well.






Using my card and paper cutter I cut the header sheet into 3 pieces and put two away carefully to keep for another time.






Using more two sided tape I cut two strips and placed them along the two long edges on the back of the Header.

I peeled off the coatings, carefully lined up the Header on the Front of the Card and stuck it down.






Next I took the butterfly cut outs that I planned to use for the first week and cut small pieces of two sided tape to put on the back of each one and then tiny 2.5cm long wooden pegs were stuck to the butterflies so that the children could clip them to the ribbons.
(I had enough pegs to do for about 4 weeks but since then I have bought more on Ebay and they only cost around £2.97 for 100 pegs inc P&P)

Each week we will have a different shape and have different colours in each of the shapes so that the children can pick which colour they want.






Before the children clip their shape to the ribbon they will write their name on the shape.
Then at the end we can count each of the names and see who has attended best and there will be a small prize for that person.

All of the children will then get to take all their shapes home with them - so they will all actually get something.

Now all that was needed was to stick two other butterflies to the Card to decorate it and the whole thing could simply be used again by carefully removing the two decorations and adding two different ones (perhaps balloons, or animal shapes).







I hope you can try this out for yourself

or

use it as inspiration for something that might suit you even better.



Other Kids Resources can be found Here.


Plus

There are many Free Printables etc. in the RESOURCE LIBRARY











Demolishing a Garden Shed


Today we are going back to something we had hoped to have done a few months ago but it just was not possible to do so, but we badly needed to get on with Demolishing The Garden Shed.







The weather stayed good for the first few weeks of this month

                 
                              and our son was able to get an afternoon off work

                                     
                                                            when Fred wasn't travelling so



the demolishing of the old wooden garden shed
 was scheduled for Wednesday.



If not too interested in the details then head on to the end of the post
and watch the short video.


I was ready with the camera as well as old clothes and two other items that I was just excited about having the chance to use for the first time


an AXE 

and

  a SLEDGE HAMMER



this was going to be some FUNWORK this time!!!




Equipment needed:

  • Hammer
  • Crow Bar
  • Screw Drivers
  • Axe
  • Sledge Hammer
  • Chainsaw
  • Gloves
  • Safety Glasses
  • Face Shield
  • Wrench
  • 2 Stepladders


Why Demolish The Shed?

The shed had to be replaced because this wooden one was rotting away.  
The trees from our neighbour had been overgrown and hanging badly over into our garden since we bought the house 4 years ago and the lower branches had been lying on the roof of the shed and rubbing along the roof during windy weather.

NI is known for it's rain and so with the wet branches rubbing against the roof of the shed we now had a roof with holes in it and the wood was ruined resulting in everything in the shed getting very moldy and dirty and wet.


Our neighbour finally decided to cut off the offending branches but
 it was too late to save the shed.





The Demolishing

Fred & Daniel started with the roof.

They took out all the nails from the tar-covered felt and got the felt off and the rotten wood removed while I unscrewed the hinges of the doors.


Then came my moment.


Fred allowed me to have a few swings at the front of the shed with


the axe 

and then

 the sledgehammer 


and then I was happy & left them to do the rest of the knocking down of the shed.






They soon had the front of the shed taken apart and started on the side and this was time for the chainsaw to come into action.



Safety




My husband works for a global company who take safety very seriously and so does he; hence the gloves, safety glasses and face protectors were donned from the start.






Another aspect of safety was always to make sure the electric cable of the chainsaw was clear of the saw and other objects and even Daniel knew to keep an eye on this.






With the first side all cut away they started on the other side which was closest to the garden fence .






This picture above was taken specifically for me as Fred had to bend over to get right down through the wood with the saw.


(Well there had to be some more FUN in all this WORK for me and not just getting to wield an axe and a sledgehammer.)







With the second side completed they were on to the back of the shed.  Which they lifted off the base in one piece and





then proceeded to cut into narrow strips.   



But this was not the end of the shed.




There was still the floor of the shed and they first had to remove all the edging of wood around the base.



Extra Work for ME!

I knew that the previous owners had left some things behind the shed where the oil tank sits but I was surprised to find that there were:
  • 3 white plastic planters, 
  • 3 white plastic oil containers,  
  • a football, 
  • 2 brush heads, 
  • a brush shaft, 
  • 2 swing seats with ropes 
  • and a large red sledge 
  • plus many planks of wood 
  • and strips of old skirting board.  



Finishing The Demolishing





Then the first plank from the floor of the shed was removed






and Fred cut the rest of the floor in two with the chainsaw so that they could lift each half up on it's end and cut it as they had the sides.



You can see from this next picture just how much damage had been done to the floor of the shed from the rain getting through the roof.






All Done!  Well Not Quite Yet!


Now the shed was all cut up but that wasn't the end of the job.

All the pieces of the shed and the junk found behind it had to be got rid of.

So it was on to the phone to order a skip to be delivered the next morning to take all the rubbish.



All of this was done in 2 and a half hours;
 including 
two breaks for drinks and fruit and biscuits
 to keep the workers happy and because they needed it, as we were all getting rather hot 
working in 19 degrees that afternoon.






Now there was another piece of equipment that Fred had used and that was the new time lapse video app on his iPad.   
He set up a stand to hold the iPad and videoed the whole event. 


 Thankfully because of the time lapse aspect of it we only had to watch around 4 mins of video which you can also watch below & see me having a few swings at the shed with that axe and sledge hammer. around the 1.55 mark


This even makes it all look like FUNWORK!



















Patio Furniture Restored


The Patio furniture was all rusted so the question was...


"Do we need to go buy new Patio Furniture?"


"Well no, not at all!"   is the answer.







We had bought a wrought iron Patio Set 2 years ago and a cover to go over it to protect it in the winter time.

I chose it because of the blue and white mosaic pattern which I really like and I knew it would brighten up our patio.

The first winter we dutifully put the cover over the 4 chairs and the table but we had a very very stormy winter and so the wind would catch under the cover and sometimes was strong enough to actually move the set.

Several times we would have to go out and fix the cover back into position and sometimes move the table and chairs back too.  Hence, because we are a lazy couple we got fed up with that and then last winter we didn't bother to put on the cover at all.

Well that was a big mistake because this summer we really noticed the rust taking hold on our otherwise sturdy chairs and we were not a happy couple then.





So I got on the internet and did some reading round the great DIY blogs that are out there to find out what we could do to get rid of the rust and save our Patio Set.
Having done that I proceeded to tell Fred that we needed to get brushes to rub over the chairs and get rid of as much of the old paint that was lifting off the furniture as we could.  Then we would need the rust treatment to paint over it and then the proper paint.

Fred headed off and came back with 2 steel brushes (one softer than the other)




and one tin of paint.






Now being me as usual I said

but that is not what I read in the blogs


Fred however told me that in the shop they explained to him that one type of paint would be perfect for the job because it was a dual purpose one,


it treats the rust and paints it.


but it would require 2 coats of this paint.


So off we started.



BEFORE


1.


The table was hardly affected by the rust at all but Fred gave it a quick go over with the softer brush anyway as we were going to have to paint it because originally the wrought iron was a dark grey but the paint we had got was black and the table & chairs would have to match up at the end.



2.



You can see here how bad the chairs were both front and back and underneath.


However the whole set was still very sturdy it was just dirty and rusted.




PREPARATION


3.


We had to tackle the chairs with the harder brush on the rust and I rubbed the white around the mosaic design part with the softer brush to clean it up as well.


There is a scraper on the harder brush and Fred needed it to help make it quicker to lift the old peeling paint.


Look at the nice sunny day we had for starting our project.



PAINTING  -  First Coat


4.


When all the chairs were well brushed over and wiped down we were able to start the painting.


It wasn't long before we were sitting down while painting and then also down on our knees to get at the lower and underneath parts.





We needed some masking tape to protect the mosaic part while I tried to paint around the tops of the chairs.


When we got the first coat of paint on the chairs we were tired and really had done as much as we could for one evening.


So then after a discussion of 

rain or no rain tonight?


we put the chairs into the garage because I was sure it was going to rain.




PAINTING  -  Second Coat


5.  Well we had quite a spell of rain over the next few days but eventually we got back to the chairs to give them and the table a second coat.







Notice it is no longer shorts and T-shirts but trousers and jumpers as in the two weeks we were doing this the temperatures changed dramatically, but then we are in Northern Ireland!



6.    Now there was one last thing to be done and that was the cleaning up of the table.




You can see how bad it was close up and how much better it looked after I had worked on it for a while.


The very centre out to the second round of light blue tiles was done using the softer brush and then some thin bleach rubbed along it.


The next section of dark blue tiles and next ring of light blue was done only with the bleach.


And then a small part of the outer section of mixed tiles was done with only the brush.


Definitely it is worth doing all of it with both brush and bleach as the centre part is really white now.




AFTER


7.     So now the job is completed and the Patio set is back in its place on the Patio







The Patio set was not very expensive 2 years ago at £199 but I certainly did not want to have to pay money for a new set next year and so investing in the brushes and paint was a much better option.  Plus the fact that Fred and I tackled a job together which makes the chore more bearable and we had some good fresh air while doing it.








Note it must be stated that it was definitely more Housework than Funwork for this project.