Good Things Utah... Father's Day Tie Rack

I loved doing this craft because we were able to just play over at Camera Shy!  These pics were fun to take and this craft was super simple (yet thoughtful) to make!

Items Needed:

*Pictures of your kids holding white Canvas boards.  I got mine from Michael's Crafts in a 5 pack for only $15 and used a 50% off coupon!
*Wood Board & pegs- I got my wood board and pegs from the Wood Connection.  I also thought it would be easy and fun to use a regular board and then hammer fun nails into it for a more rustic look.  But, my husband wasn’t home to do it for me so I just went the easy route and paid for it (heehee)
*Paint of any color
*Mod Podge
*Photo Texturing cream
*roller

Directions:

Have your kids hold white boards up in a series of pictures.  Here are mine before I added the letters:

I used Photoshop elements to simply add these words to the pictures:  “Dad’s love TIES us together”.  This is why I love that Camera Shy gives me a disk.  If you are extra awesome, you can make the poster boards ahead of time and snap pictures of your kids holding the pictures.  I was just to lazy to do that!

Paint your board and pegs any color you would like.  I like to sand the edges to add a little distressing.

Mod podge the picture to the top of the board.

Add a layer of photo cream with a foam roller to add a fun “canvas” texture to the picture.  (optional)  Notice how it is a milky white color.  No worries!  Leave it be... it will dry clear!

And just to brag, here are some pics Camera Shy took while we were there that I absolutely loved!

 **All opinions are my own, I am not sponsored by Camera Shy or any other business mentioned in this blog post. 

Birthday Blowout Sale!

Happy Birthday to Kayla!

This week Kayla is turning the big 1-6!  I can't believe it!  Guess what that means... time to buy her a new car!  In our house, we make the kids buy half of their car.  I thought it would be fun to have a Birthday Blowout Sale for her as a "fundraiser" for her portion of the car. 

Place your order by her birthday,

THURSDAY, APRIL 18  

and you will receive

50% off

(hint: our prices are already BELOW retail so your savings are really even bigger than this!) 

I know! Call me crazy.  I think I might be....  Use promo code Kayla16 to get this awesome deal!

Enjoy the savings and THANK YOU for being an awesome customer AND for helping her out with her new set of wheels :)

Good Things Utah segment featuring CAMERA SHY PICS...Crafty ways to get your kids to do chores!

With spring in the air I am REALLY feeling the need to clean my house!  I am quickly realizing I need my kids' help to do this so I created a few ideas to help get things done.

SATURDAY CHORE BUCKETS
I saw this idea on Pinterest and I would LOVE to give credit for this cute idea but there was only a picture, and not a link anywhere!  Since I have 3 kids I got 3 buckets with the supplies needed for them to do their chores.  I put a tag on the bucket with their "to do list".  When they finish this chore, I am going to let them draw a lottery ticket!

This lottery ticket is where I got my craft on!  I went to CAMERA SHY IN LEHI and told them I needed a decent picture of myself (hard to do!) holding a frame.  It was easy because they have so many props they grabbed this frame right away!  They snapped me some pics and I picked my favorite one.

Because they give me the CD of pictures, I was able to use photoshop and add a white square inside the frame and then just simply print these puppies at Costco.

With a thin sharpie marker I wrote in the "prize" they will get for completing their chore.

Using 2 parts metallic paint to 1 part dish soap, paint a square of paint on a piece of contact paper or clear tape.  Let dry and re-paint as needed for coverage.

Cut the contact paper to the size of the square on your picture.  Now it is ready to be scratched off!

The kids will love the surprise and the fun of scratching off this card when they finish their chores.  (I'm not going to guarantee they will love the actual chore, heehee) 

CHORE JARS
I love this idea because I can make their chores match my room and look like decor! To start, I will give you instructions on how to make this cute little puppies and then I will tell you how I use them!

I wanted the color on my candlesticks to show through as being white so I painted each wooden candlestick with a coat of white paint first.

I then applied Aquaphore (but I think you can also use vaseline) to the areas I wanted to have the white show through.

Paint the top coat you would like.  I used blue paint.

Sand the Candlestick with sand paper and the white will show through effortlessly.  LOVE easy distressing!

Glue a wooden 4” disk (painted blue) to the top of your candlestick.  Glue the glass jar to the top of the wooden disk. I used E6000 glue.  I then tied ribbons and a tag with a picture of my kids (love that I can print Camera Shy pictures to any size) to each jar.  One jar got a tag that simply says “done”.

Next I got some popsicle sticks from the craft store and wrote the chores I wanted each kid to do on the stick.  I used my crop-a-dile hole punch to punch a hole and tie a ribbon on the top of each stick.  Each stick has a different color of ribbon for each child.

I used one of my pictures from Camera Shy to make these "Mom Bucks" on my computer.

Now, are you wondering what to do with all this?  It is simple!  I just put the sticks in each jar for each child at the beginning of the day.  When they have completed their chore, they will get to put that popsicle stick in the "done" jar.  At the end of the day I pay each child by putting their mom bucks in their jar.  They can cash them in at the end of the week.  I like using mom bucks so kids don't lose the money throughout the week, but they get to see it add up as they do their chores.