FHE Chart {Finally!}

August 16, 2010 50 Comments

Do you have a project that just sits at the back of your mind FOREVER just waiting to take a clear shape? I have way too many to count! Sometimes I have an idea, but I just can't "see" it in my head. I had been dreaming and scheming up a FHE Chart for months. I am proud to say that this Family Home Evening Chart is finally complete. Once I had the vision, it just took a few hours to put together with a bit of help from the hubby.

It all started with this innocent piece of bare wood that I bought at The Wood Connection. (You will be hearing a lot about The Wood Connection considering I came home with more than $100 of wood from The Wood Connection the last time we visited Utah!)

I really wanted a chart with both words and pictures. I wanted Little Man to understand the chart even before he could read! The hardest part of this project was finding the images to design my vinyl. I love how simple the pictures are... perfect for kids to understand!

I adore the metal bracket (Can someone tell me the true name for this.... I don't think it's really a bracket!) It just adds a bit of elegance, don't you think? Mr. Oopsey Daisy got involved with this project, and helped drill in the beautiful bracket. Thanks, babe!

Instead of just swapping little tags with our names, I loved the idea from You Craft Me Up of using our pictures instead! I love the classy black and white pictures. I found blank keychains on sale at JoAnn's, developed some pictures, and cut them down to size. I added a bit of ribbon as a finishing touch!

I love red! It's so bold and beautiful and matches our room perfectly. Isn't it silly that this little chart makes me so much more excited for Family Night?

Have a great week, my friends!

Filed Under: craft, Family Home Evening, vinyl, wood crafts

Manners Flannel Board Story Freebie

August 6, 2010 9 Comments

If you're new to Oopsey Daisy, I try to share everything with you. My journey in creativity goes in many different directions and believe me, it is definitely not a smoothly paved road. There are plenty of bumps and the occasional bruise along the way! But my philosophy is why not share the process with you?! I learn so much from others' amazing talent that I am constantly inspired.

On Fridays, I try to give back by offering some kind of freebie. Probably because I am a former first grade teacher, many freebies end up being child-related. It's been a couple of weeks since I offered a freebie! Blame it on the summer craziness, I guess! I genuinely don't create printables simply to create them. Everything I share with you is something I am honestly using in my own home in some way.

Today, I am thinking back to the ongoing list in my head of things I want to be doing. In this post, I explained my organization for my Family Home Evening files. I ambitiously set out to create a new "unit" each month. Admittedly, I have not met my goal and feel a bit guilty about the mess of files, pictures, stories, and games just sitting in my closet! But I am currently almost done with a unit on Manners. I stumbled across a flannel board story that I collected in college! I retyped it, laminated it, and it's ready to go! Now it is ready to share with you!

In all honesty, I find this story absolutely hilarious! To sum up, it's the story of Pudgy the Pig, a fat little pig who learns to be polite at mealtimes in the barnyard. I crack up every time I read it! But it is a great story to teach mealtime manners to our kids in a fun way!

The download includes the story and the visual aids of Farmer Brown and the animals. Here is a sneak peek of the animals. Aren't they cute?! I do love the farm theme! 🙂

You can download the entire story and corresponding visual aids here.

Thanks for making Oopsey Daisy part of your day!

Filed Under: Family Home Evening, flannel board story

Family Home Evening File Organization

June 10, 2010 20 Comments

I am ashamed to say that for years, my Family Home Evening files have been stuffed aimlessly amongst my other files with barely any rhyme or reason. Of course as Little Man has been growing up, I have been inspired to up my game! I am really trying to make my Family Home Evenings more meaningful, so it was finally time to get organized.

I took on this project like a teacher writing and organizing lesson plans!

I used colorful files because they just make me happy. They are all alphabetized in this lovely little storage bin!

I decided that, rather than create tons of little stories and lessons, to create an entire "unit" on a topic (yep, here comes the teacher again!). For example, I searched out all of the cute lessons, stories, and ideas on the topic of Easter. I included them all in 1 huge, fat lesson plan. This Easter unit could be used for an entire month's work of Family Home Evening's, so my time is definitely well spent. This is usually my ongoing project each Sunday. I'll be honest, I'm only on my third Family Home Evening unit. But they are turning out fabulous!! Plus I had lots of help from my fabulous Family Home Evening group! I have offered some Family Home Evening ideas and downloads you can check out here.

Each lesson plan includes these things:

Also included in the units, I include ideas for older and younger children. I want to be able to adapt for my kids as they get older, and still be able to stretch it for the wee ones!

In the mean time, I gather fun ideas, talks, games and organize them by topic until I create a unit for that topic. I have a whole bunch of ideas collected over the years, just waiting to be put to good use!

Of course I had to create something cute to store all of this hard work!! I just bought a storage bin at Wal-Mart, and mod-podged coordinating scrapbook paper and ribbon on all 4 sides and on the top.

I cut out the words on my trusty cricut. I worried a bit about this tearing, so I covered the paper with another coat of mod-podge. Don't you just love mod podge?!

So now all of my ideas are at my finger tips. My husband just LOVES that he can just pull out a file folder and be ready to go!

Today's Giveaway Winners:

I never heard from one of the Simply Designing bracelet winners. Sad day! But happy day for Kim!! I am so excited that you won!

And Beetle is the winner of Creation Corner's incredible bib set giveaway.

Congrats, lovely ladies! Just e-mail me at oopsey (dot) daisy (at) yahoo (dot) com with your e-mail and shipping addresses. I will pass them along to the giveaway hosts.

Filed Under: Family Home Evening, organization

Make Your Own Flannel Board

May 6, 2010 21 Comments

Can it be possible that I do not already own a flannel board?!

I finally decided to fix my little problem. I turned this $6 nothing-special-at-all whiteboard into my fabulous multi-purpose flannel board.

Want to see how I did it?

I started out with this little guy from Wal-Mart. I did like that it was a magnetic white board... it's already serving 2 purposes. Score! But I really only needed the back of the board to create my flannel board.

I wanted to make the back of the whiteboard into a flannel board. So I bought some blue flannel on sale, and cut a piece that was a bit larger than the board.

To hide the edges and prevent fraying, I folded all 4 sides and pressed my folds under in order to create my desired size.

I used hot glue to secure the flannel to the board. Where would I be without my hot glue gun?! I had hoped to staple my flannel right on the board, but the plastic was just too flimsy. But if you have a wood board, by all means, staple away!

The board was just a little bare for my liking... so I beautified! I added ribbon to both sides of my board.

I probably went overboard by adding felt flowers in a corner for extra cuteness. But I like the finishing touch! Here is the final product:

I was so anxious to turn this into a Family Home Evening tool that I added some burlap magnets to the whiteboard side to maximize its use!

This flannel board/white board now has 3 purposes: 1. Flannel board stories and activities. 2. Writing. 3. Magnetic activities. I love the magic of multi-purposing! We are already getting great use out of this flannel board!

I firmly believe that the flannel board is an amazing learning tool. My son is loving all of the songs and stories--that's for sure!

Filed Under: craft, Family Home Evening, flannel board story Tagged With: DIY flannel board, flannel board, make your own flannel board

Easter Family Home Evening Ideas

April 2, 2010 3 Comments

Are you lovin' the TWO downloads in 1 day?!

I realize that Easter is just 2 days away... BUT I am trying to beef up my Family Home Evening files. Right now I'm working on a Family Home Evening unit on the First Easter and Resurrection. So I ransacked my Mom's files and found an incredible Easter packet all about the Savior's final week of His life based on Jesus the Christ. There are prophecies, relevant scriptures, and a description of the events of each day. I hope you can find this useful! I printed this out, each page on a different color of pastel paper so it was very Easter-ish. You can download this packet here. It might be a nice topic on Easter Sunday, after the buzz of the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg Hunts wears off! Or you can just save it for next Easter. Whatever works. Here is an example of one of the pages:

Chocolate On My Cranium offers a download of a similar activity that would be great for young kids using a chart. There is a picture that corresponds with every day of the week. Very cool... check it out!!

I don't have any picture to show you, but I also really liked the idea for a hands-on week-long Easter experience. I found this idea at Sugardoodle.

You can also download some awesome Easter Family Home Evening activitiesher e. There is a cute Easter egg hunt using symbols of the First Easter, a flannel board story, and more! So adorable. The creator of these awesome activities was willing to share her talents and time, but does not wish to attract blog traffic. Totally understandable. Thank you for sharing!

I hope you have a fun--but meaningful--Easter!

Filed Under: download, Easter, Family Home Evening

Free Download: More FHE Goodies

March 19, 2010 2 Comments

The FHE exchange with my group took place last weekend, and I was so amazed at their talent and creativity! The lessons I received were absolutely fabulous!! I can't wait to do Family Home Evenings now. Neither can Mr. Oopsey Daisy... he just has to pull out a file folder, and the work is done! I am looking forward to doing another exchange soon.

Anyway, I love Fridays. Here is one more download from the lesson I created on Family Love & Unity. (If you haven't downloaded the flannel board story and family unity game yet, you can find them on my sidebar.)

I think family time is so important, so I created a monthly chart where a family could track their progress with holding these activities:

1) Family Home Evenings

2) Family prayer

3) Family scripture study

4) Family meal time.

My idea was to laminate the chart so that you could use stickers or a marker to track progress. On page 2, there are quotes from prophets about the importance of each one of those 4 activities. I printed my charts so that these quotes were on the back. It looks like this:

You can download the chart here. I hope someone out there can use this! Let me know if you like it. Happy Friday and have a nice, relaxing weekend!

Filed Under: download, Family Home Evening

Free Download: FHE Game

March 12, 2010 3 Comments

I had the best day yesterday! Thanks, Kari, for featuring me on U Create!! I kept checking my e-mail all day long, and the happy comments seriously made my day. It makes me want to be better at commenting myself so I can help spread the love! You guys are awesome!

Let's celebrate the week with a little Free Download. I think I have mentioned that I am part of a Family Home Evening group. This was the perfect way for me to build up my FHE files. I created my lesson on Family Love and Unity. Whew! It was a lot of work, but I love that it is all done and can't wait to see what the other team members have come up with! Anyway, I created two games for the lesson, and I want to share one of them with you.

It includes a gameboard that looks like this:

The full download includes this gameboard with instructions and over 50 game cards. Basically, you have a game marker to represent each family member. The game cards represent scenarios that INCREASE or DECREASE family love and unity. Each card tells the player to move forward or backward on the trail of hearts toward the End. The first player to reach the End, wins!

I hope some of you can use this game. You can download it from my sidebar or by clicking here.

Happy Friday!!!

Filed Under: download, Family Home Evening

No More Coloring!

February 26, 2010 4 Comments

I love flannel board stories. They bring back great memories of growing up. We used to tell each other scripture flannel board stories on Sundays and for Family Home Evenings. I think this is how I learned the scripture stories. I thought that flannel board stories were pretty much extinct (at least the ones my parents had are no longer being sold).

Anyway, I just found a couple of great website that offer downloads of all of the flannel board stories and some other activities from the Friend magazine. Here are the links to the sites:

Pratt's Family Home Evening and Primary Sharing Time Idea Box

Idea Door

Another one of my goals this year is to start a Family Home Evening file. So I am part of a Family Home Evening group and getting a lesson on Family Unity ready. This is the set of pictures that goes along with the "Nephi Forgives" story that I am using to go with my lesson:

I admit that I felt terribly lazy about coloring 9 sets of pictures for my flannel board story to trade with the other members of my group. I can get fairly creative when motivated by laziness! Perhaps I got my fill of coloring while teaching.

Lightbulb Moment: I realized that I could use Photoshop to "color" these pictures. I simply used the Paint Bucket tool to fill the areas of the picture with a certain color. Magnifying the pictures up to 500% helped me with the detailed areas. I used the pencil tool also to touch up areas of the beards that didn't have clear definitive lines.

Because I am so pleased with myself for figuring this out, I want to share! You should be able to just click and drag on this picture to download this colored version. But just in case, I have a document with the story (I tweaked it slightly to go with my "Family Unity" lesson theme) and the colored pictures that you can download here. (Or just grab it from my sidebar under "My Downloads.") I hope someone else can find this useful!! It beats hours spent coloring, right?!

Filed Under: download, Family Home Evening, flannel board story, Photoshop