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family activities

Quick Make – Heart Charm

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Here is a quick make for you, a heart charm to decorate a bag or belt. You can use any motif or charm to make these. I have chosen hearts and music as those are two of my favourite themes.

The elements I have used are cheap to source and you can include recycled items, buttons or ribbon. I have lots of offcuts and remnants from other projects and these charms are great for using those.

I bought a job lot of key chain hooks on Amazon. These were very cheap (£7 for 50 at the time of purchase) and offer the flexibility of using either the small loop on the carabiner clip or using a larger ring which comes with the clip. I also bought a pack of musical charms (£4 for 24 at time of purchase).

Design your Charm

The fun bit is in deciding which crochet motifs and colours to use when putting the charm together. I called this quick make – Heart Charm as it is close to valentines day. My finished charm has pink hearts based on my heart pattern which you can get here. I made one small and one medium sized heart in pink. You don’t have to stick with the heart theme. There are lots of crochet motif patterns available. I have a board for these on Pinterest.

Consider the yarn carefully. These charms might rub against the bag or clothing. If you use a fluffy yarn it might start to look worn very quickly. I chose to use mercerised cotton as it is hardwearing and doesn’t bobble. I also happened to have some oddments in my stash!

If crochet isn’t your thing you could make little hearts out of fabric, stuffing them to make them look full. If sewing isn’t your thing you could cut shapes out of felt. Felt is wonderful for craft as it doesn’t fray so does not require stitching.

You can attach the elements of your charm to the ring or clip direct. I hung my charms by plaiting the cotton through the ring on the clip – hiding the ends as neatly as I could. Making the ends of the plait into tassels is a good way of finishing off. This makes the ends secure without stitching. You could glue bits together – especially if you are using felt. However, do consider how hardwearing your charm needs to be. If it is going to be on a belt or heavily used bag it will need pretty robust.

Making your Charm

First, make your motif and remember to leave plenty of thread or yarn so that you can use it to join the motif to the clip. To attach with a plait, take one of the ends of the cotton used to make the heart. Thread the end through the ring of the clip and double the thread back. Position the heart so that the length of thread between clip and heart is slightly longer than the finished length you would like. Add two other threads through the ring of the clip. Each thread should be folded over so you have six coming from the clip.

Pair the threads up and plait!

When you get to the heart, tie a knot in the threads to secure. You can also finish off by binding one of the threads around the others if you prefer. Repeat this method with other motifs. I added some beads as they provide weight which helps the charm hang well.

The only limit to these charms is your own imagination. You could add buttons or bows. You could make pompoms or tassels to add. Make them for your friends or as party favours 🙂

Here is a picture of one of my finished charms. I will put these up for sale on my Etsy store but I expect people would rather make their own than buy mine!

Happy crafting!

Annie 🙂

Get Organised!!!

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Three more basics for your family bullet journal. I use these more than any other pages in my bullet journal so I thought I would create them as loose leaf templates for you. The downloads are available in A4 and letter formats.  

Get Organised!!!!

Do list

The trusty do list! I used to have several of these running in different notebooks and a couple of electronic ones for good measure! I recognise that my do list habits are not good. Habits such as adding tasks to the list that are already complete (so I can give myself a tick)…. not really helpful. Another trap I often fall into is putting enormous tasks on the list that I have no hope of completing… again not conducive to making progress. Here are some tips for constructing a useful motivating do list….

  1. Make each task clear so it is obvious when it has been completed.
  2. Break down larger tasks into actionable elements
  3. Only put tasks on the list that you can complete yourself
  4. Put the tasks on the list that will make a real difference
  5. Put the hardest tasks first and do them first or alternate one hard one easy. 

Final tip from me is to date the tasks. Write down the first date you put the task on the list. This is one thing I started doing when I realised my do lists going back months had some of the same items on. These were items I always wrote down but never actioned. I was constantly carrying the weight of failure to complete these actions. Either these were things that weren’t important to me (or anyone) or I was really letting myself down by not doing them! One item that sat on my list for more than a year was to start a blog! 🙂 

Do List - prints to A4 paper (145 downloads)

Do list - prints to Letter paper (120 downloads)

The printable formats you can download here have a space to include the date. If you find a task sitting on the list for a long time then consider…is it REALLY something you want to do? If so GET ON WITH IT! If not, strike it from the list and give yourself a break!  

When did I last….

This is a great tracker for routine tasks. Everything from changing beds and towels to caring for pets and cleaning rooms that aren’t in frequent use (if you are lucky enough to have them!). Even jobs that are supposed to be done weekly get a slot on my list and putting them here means my do list doesn’t fill up with repetitive routine.   

You can also use this tracker as a reminder to stay in touch. Time passes soooo quickly. Adding reminders such as when did I last call Jack or visit Rachel reminds you not to lose touch. Fill out the list and check it over each week.  

When did I last... prints to A4 (157 downloads)

When did I last... prints to letter paper (175 downloads)

Activities List

This is one of the layouts we use as a family to record things that any of us would like to do. We have often used it at the start of school holidays to work out how we will spend any free time we have together. Having this list helps to get the best ideas together. The first step is to brainstorm all the activities each member of the family would like to do. We keep a list open all the time and add to it whenever the inspiration comes!

The layout includes columns to estimate the cost and to indicate whether an activity is indoors/outdoors… important when you consider the normal British weather. Using the completed list to drive the discussion about how to spend time as a family teaches us lots of interesting things:

  1. The budget is not limitless
  2. Everyone likes doing different things
  3. Negotiation and persuasive skills are needed if you want your activity to make it to the top of the list
  4. Time is precious!

The layout also includes a section where you can add notes and review the activity. We use a simple method of *’s out of 5 and each member of the family has a colour they normally use. I think this teaches us that it isn’t always the expensive activities that are the most enjoyable. The ratings people give can be a real eye-opener!

Activity Planner - prints to A4 (437 downloads)

Activity planner - prints to letter paper (174 downloads)

Next week I have a habit and sleep tracker for you… or I will have if I complete all the actions on my do list! Have a good week!!

Annie 🙂

Fun Family Activities

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In my last blog post I introduced three activities that we like to do as a family here in the mad house. Family scrapbook/journal, family playlists and our activities list. If you would like to read the previous post you can find it here

In this post I will share the downloads to help you get started with two of these activities.

  1. Setting up a family bullet journal and
  2. Documenting your family playlists!

Family Bullet Journal

There are many benefits to keeping a journal. You might want to add a bit more organisation to your family life. Maybe you want to create memories and record holidays or achievements. There are some beautiful and inspirational bullet journal ideas out there. I have a Pintrest board dedicated to them which you can see here .

I am a self confessed stationery addict and I love the specialist notebooks and gorgeous fineliner pen sets that people use to produce these glorious layouts. I have included some of my personal favourites in the box at the foot of this post. Please note that the some of the links in my blog are affilliate links which means that I might receive a small payment at no additional cost to you, when you follow the links.

The layouts you can see on Pinterest can be intimidating in that they are soooo artistic. I don’t know about you but I am not at all talented when it comes to art. I love colour and design but free hand drawing is something that I just cannot do. The beauty of bullet journals is that you can create lovely pages just using colours and fonts. You can use stickers and washi-tape if you can’t design/draw your own images. Anything goes!

I find when sharing bullet journal pages with my family, a note book is not the best format. Pages can easily become messy or torn. Also we like to save tickets, postcards, art projects and photos in the journal and notebooks don’t allow space for this easily. For all these reasons I prefer to use a loose leaf format that I can add to and replace easily.

The foundation of most bullet journals is the basic dotted page. This simple format allows you to produce tidy layouts as it provides a guide for boxes, lists or pictures. The first of the free downloads I have for you is therefore this basic bullet journal page. The download includes a title box plus a place to record date and location. The file is available in three sizes. A4 and Letter have just one sheet ready to print. The A5 format prints to A4 paper and has two A5 layouts side by side so needs to be cut down the centre. In my favourite supplies (shown at the foot of the post) I have included the gadget I use to cut these pages to size.

Here are the first three free downloads:

Dotted page - A4 (126 downloads)

Dotted page - Letter (119 downloads)

Dotted page - A5 (121 downloads)

Family Playlist

The second of the free downloads I have for you will help you with another family activity. This is where you document a family playlist.

We all have playlists that are favourites for a while before we move on. Recording the reasons for tracks in a playlist make it a permanent record of a time in our lives. Something we can later look back on and (hopefully) smile about!

There are many music services out there that allow you to set up playlists. For example Amazon prime membership gives you music streaming and many other benefits. When we first started to do this the only option was to set them up on an ipod from music in our library. When I was young people made cassette tapes (have I lost you now?)

Having a playlist as a family allows you to record a particular event or period in your lives. Documenting the reasons for the tracks on the list gives you something to look back on many years ahead when you might have forgotten some of the details of that time. If you have any family members who are struggling with memory loss then I am told that a playlist from a period of time in their lives can be a comfort. Note down the reasons or triggers for each song you include in the list. Any detail you include here might be a memory jog in the future.

This download again provides a framework to document the playlist. You can have as many of these as you like in your family bullet journal. They can be shared or individual. They could be playlists from a party or wedding. It could be a playlist from your annual holiday or roadtrip. It might be the sound track to your daily school run. Whatever the reason behind the list, this could be something that you will play again in the future and be taken back to that period of your lives. Once again the download is available in A4 and Letter formats. There is also an A5 format that prints two pages side by side to A4 size paper.

Playlist layout - A4 (115 downloads)

Playlist layout - Letter (112 downloads)

Playlist layout - A5 (prints to A4 paper) (122 downloads)

That is it for this week. I will be putting up more free downloads for your family bullet journal in future weeks and also sharing some of the craft projects we are trying as a family. Determined we will spend more creative family time crafting and less time glued to electronic devices! Wish me luck 🙂

Annie.

Creative fun with your kids

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Having creative fun with your kids is a fantastic way to bond and develop together. Would you like to help your kids explore their creativity and lay down great memories!?    Would you like to make the most of long school holidays and weekends?   Age is no barrier to this – teenagers can be inspired to flex their creativity and the results can be amazing! It would be such a shame for them to lose that time to social media and electronic games.    After all it really won’t be many years before they head into a world of work with two weeks summer holiday at most.    Many older children will start with holiday jobs before leaving home and hence have even fewer long breaks. 

With all the distractions and pressures of the modern electronic world spending time away from games and social media is really positive and creativity is great for reducing stress.   I would certainly like to provide space and inspiration to allow my children to make things and learn or at least explore new crafts.

Like most people I don’t have all the money in the world to spend and I don’t have much time either.  I would like to organise holiday activities that encourage and develop creativity but don’t break the bank.

This post contains ideas for three activities you can do today with your kids. They are the basis for all the other activities which will follow. I will include a more detailed post on each in later weeks but there is enough here to get you started!

1.  A list of creative fun activities

This is something we do at the start of our school holidays. We all contribute ideas and then estimate for each idea what the cost would be in time and money.    I love doing this with my family.    It is an exercise in creativity all by itself.    Just getting teenagers to explore what activities they might want to do is refreshing and interesting.  You might find some of the ideas your kids come up with are surprising!

Set categories such as indoor/outdoor, dry/wet weather, free/cheap/splurge, active or restful.   Make sure you have activity ideas in each category.  Doing this helps people consider all sorts of activities not just the ones that involve parents spending lots of money!

This can also be an excellent way to teach younger kids about the costs of activities and explain or set budgets.  I will be sharing my lists here in later posts.   Incidentally Pinterest is a great source of ideas! I have a board devoted to activity ideas which you can see here Pinterest – Activity Ideas

I have produced a free printable template to record the activity ideas which you can read about and download here

2. Family scrapbook

These can be as fancy or simple as you and your family would like.  We used to do one each when my children were younger.   This year I am considering moving to a single one for all of us. Capture the ideas list you create with your family in the scrapbook right at the front! 

I love the bullet journal format but a notebook doesn’t really work when you are looking to collect ticket stubs and add photos.   The additional thickness puts too much strain on the spine of the book.  I find they work best as a loose leaf format so that pages can be added. 

You can keep it cheap and simple with office ring binders.   If you have a bigger budget and want something ready made and prettier there are lots of albums available.    The page limit doesn’t have to be a problem if you are prepared to have more than one!   

Again following a bullet journal type format, I like to use dotted paper which you can buy cheaply as refill pads.   Dotted paper is more flexible than lined paper when it comes to designing pages but the grid provides a guide to keep designs looking neat even if (like me) erm….art is not your first talent!

You can try to be ultra disciplined in terms of what you keep and record or you can keep a draft and refine the content when you make it a permanent record.   I will cover the structure and content of our scrapbooks in a later post.   

Ask your kids to complete a page every time they have something fun to document. Tip – ask them to put the day, date and time at the top of the page!! This helps with filing later and is a good teaching point. You could also get them to include the location (if you are travelling) and the weather is another interesting record to me. (but then I am British!)

You don’t need any special kit to get started on this activity. You can use any scrap paper and pens. I do find it is more special if you have pens and paper set aside specially for the scrapbook. Scrapbooking is a whole industry with some amazing and beautiful layouts, paper and embelishments you can buy. I haven’t gone down that road myself. Our scrapbooks have been much more home-made and low cost. Here are my starter for ten – budget kit and splurge kits if you would like to keep special pens and paper for this activity.    Please note, if you follow links in this post I may receive a small payment which goes towards the cost of running this blog.

Budget Scrapbook Kit

When your budget is tight it is important to spend on the things that will really make a difference.    In this instance I think that is the pens that you will use to brighten your pages and make them stand out.   There are so many options out there but for price and quality I would go with Stabilo point 88 fineliners.   I wouldn’t go for a large number of colours – you can make things look really special with just a few colours.   If you have a young family I would not recommend fineliners as the points can easily be damaged by little hands. When my kids were at that stage we stuck to wax crayons or chubby coloured pencils which I have in my recommendations below.

For the pages themselves to keep the cost down I would go for plain printer paper which you can buy locally to avoid shipping cost. I will also provide free downloads for printable pages when I can.

Finally if your budget is tight then I would either make a folder or do without one at the outset.   I will share a tutorial on making folders in a later post.    To keep your pages tidy you could use treasury tags or simply hold them together with a spare bit of ribbon, yarn or a shoelace!

Splurge Scrapbook Kit

As above, I would put my money into the fineliners.    I would still go for the Stabilo fineliners 88 but would maybe go for a few more colours 🙂   You will find you use a lot of the black pen so it is worth buying a separate set of those.   I also suggest you go for some pens with a thicker point for block colouring.  

Dotted A4 paper is the most flexible and I find it helps me make pages look tidy/pretty. The paper can be bought in pad form which makes it easier to work on and can be filed when pages are completed. 

If you are interested in the elaborate artistic scrapbooking that you can see in craft shops and on Pinterest, there are lots of beautiful supplies you can treat yourself to. Search on scrapbooking on Amazon, Etsy or Pinterest for a taste. I am not familiar with much of that world and it can be very expensive!

For the binder there are lots of options out there but I find the easiest way to source these is to buy lever arch files from my local office supplies shop.   Longer term I really would recommend making your own as part of one of your activity sessions.

3.  Family playlists

The third activity I would recommend is to set up a family playlist. This is something we started in the summer a few years ago now.  They are actually playlists for an entire year.  We each put forward the songs that make us think of that particular year.  Because the list requires everyone’s agreement it is an exercise in selling and diplomacy!  We have rules as follows:

1. Everyone can veto songs they don’t like. 

2. However we all have the right to one song that has been vetoed.  Oh… and

3. The judges decision is final (ie Mum gets to arbitrate if things get nasty!). 

We add to the list all year and record the reasons we are putting each track on the playlist.  It isn’t all current music. One year our playlist included older tracks used for an aqua-aerobics class at a hotel we were at for a week.  We heard the music every day and later those tracks reminded us of the holiday! Capture your list and include it in your family scrapbook!

When I was young, a play list was something you pieced together on a cassette tape. When I was a young Mum playlists were on my ipod. Now, if you subscribe to a music service you can set up an actual play list. We use Spotify here but I believe all services will allow you to set up shared play lists.

So those are my three start points.   I will share more detail from our planning and would love to hear from anyone with different ideas.  What do you do that works well?  What potential
mistakes should I avoid?  Please share!!

Have fun!

Annie 🙂