{chore blocks}

Do you ever feel like your life/house is unorganized and just a mess.  I have four kids aging from 1-7.  I know, craziness :)  So literally I was constantly cleaning all day loooong every day. If you have four kids you know what laundry is alone..  Geez never ending... I am a very laid back person and the load of doing everything {being a stay at home mom trying to work and keep up with all the other everyday life stuff} was really wearing on me.. I would try to get my kids to help me out but all they did was wine at me.. ugh.....  You mind if I vent for a second ;)  Something had to change... I had had it, I was done.  I was sick of cleaning up everyone else's messes all dang day.  My kids were old enough to have responsibilities and I needed to lay things down, be a better mom, and get our home and family organized. 

I needed a fun way to get my kids interested in helping out.  I googled chore charts and came across this..  This would be the perfect thing for us to start off with.  Looked super easy and I could totally do it..  I got all my supplies and on Saturday got to work on it..

The whole point is each kid has their own block and all the chores are wrote down on the Popsicle sticks. Everyday you put the chore/sticks you want each kid to do in their block.

I used:

1-2x4 piece of wood

the drill bits i have pics of below

drill

scrapbook paper

modge podge

sand paper

glaze

Popsicle sticks

chalk board paint

First I cut 5- 3 1/2 in pieces.  Four are to stand up and one is to lay down.

Then 1- 9 1/2 inch long piece for the bottom.

The tall blocks are to hold each kids chore sticks that they have to do each day and the short one holds all the chore sticks that aren't being used.

I used this bit to drill the big hole for the shortest block.  This was a pain.  The wood kept on spinning and I twisted my arm like 10 times and probably said some .... words :)  But I found a spot to hold the wood in place and it wasn't so bad after I figured that out.

Then I used this one for the small holes on the tall blocks.  This was fun and super easy. It took me like one minute to drill all four holes.

After I got all the holes drilled I sanded each piece to get all the edges smooth.

I then traced each side of wood I was going to cover onto the scrapbook paper, then cut it out.  I then modge podged the paper onto the wood.

After it dried I sanded all the edges so there was no paper hanging off.

I went over the sanded edges with brown glaze to give it an older distressed look.  After the glaze dried I modge podged over each block to seal and protect it.

While it was all drying, I got my Popsicle sticks and painted them with chalk board paint.  I thought it would be fun to have chalk board sticks..

As soon as they dried it was complete. 

It was so easy and my kids love it.. It has totally worked too.  My kids dig it and are liking doing chores.  And I think it is pretty cute as well.. 

So hears to the start to organization.