2017 Family Life Goals

Everyone is busy setting and accomplishing their goals for the new year and we are no exception over here! Today I'm talking specifically about our family bucket list goals for 2017.  We have done summer bucket lists before but this year, we are going to try it for the whole year.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you saw that we recently had a screen-free week here.  Surprisingly, we did not really cross many items off the list during that week, though it was a great week of being together more and not distracted by screens.

For 2017, we are going to work towards crossing as many of these activities off the list as possible, while probably adding to it as the year goes on. I plan to blog about it and share our photos as we go.

Here's our list so far: 

• Take a trip to the library - our library has toys and puzzles you can play with in the children's section and my kids love spending time there.
• Make salt dough ornaments
• Bake cookies for someone else
• Paint/make homemade Christmas cards
• Make a no-sew pillow/blanket
• Write a book report and present to family
• Paint plates at pottery place - I have this idea I'm really excited about that would involve us painting one dinner plate each, in our own design, so that we could each have our own plate at home that we created!! I think this would be really cool!
• Workbook activities (letters, math, etc...)
• Organize mom & dad's room
• Clean out garage
• Write a story together
• Draw coloring pages
• Take a walk/treasure hunt at the mall
• Snowball fight/sledding
• Visit the beach at least once
• Summer vacation somewhere close
• Grill out with friends in the backyard
• Jo & Calah learn to swim (they took 4 months of lessons in the fall and will do more in April/May)
• Family bike ride

I'm looking for more ideas, too, so if you have tried something fun with the family that's not on this list, feel free to comment below!

DIY Customized Word Art

Good morning everyone! I have recently discovered a really cool tool that helps make your own customized word art and I wanted to share it with you.  I don't know about you guys, but in the middle of this dreary winter season, I really need something colorful and pretty to look at since we're inside most of the day right now.

Well, I recently was introduced to a website that allows you to make your own word art! You can type your own words or phrases that you want to display, pick a shape and colors, then WHAM - word art! It's super easy and doesn't take long at all.  I have done a few of these and printed them out on cardstock to hang up.  Do yourself a favor and visit www.tagul.com to create one for yourself!

Above is a replica of the first one that I made and am planning to put it in a frame with a white background and hang it on the wall in our hallway where we keep our Family Rules and points board/white board for drawing.

The thing I love about this website is that you can play around with the colors and they have a ton of shapes you can use, so you really can make it your own!

How do you make this amazing word art, you ask??  In a few simple steps actually.

First, visit www.tagul.com and click on the green button "CREATE NOW".  You do not need to create an account to make your images if you're just going to save them to the computer or print them out.  I think the account is only required if you're going to order your image on merchandise you can buy from them.

2. After you click on CREATE NOW, you'll see a button that says IMPORT WORDS (the icon next to it is a green box with a white arrow).  Click on that and a box will popup where you can start typing the words and/or phrases you want to use.

3. When you type your words into the popup box, just leave one space between words.  If you're using a phrase, such as 'I love you', you just need to connect each word with this symbol: ~
For example, you would type I~love~you and then leave a space after your last word to input another word or phrase. Then click IMPORT WORDS at the bottom of the popup.

4. You should see all of your words and phrases in a list.  If for some reason, one of your phrases gets separated (e.g. I love  and  you instead of I love you, all together), you can fix that in this list by typing the phrase in one box all together.  You can also remove a line if needed by clicking on that line and then click Remove.

5. Once you're satisfied with your list of words, click the big VISUALIZE button on the right and the site will generate the image.  If you want to pick your own shapes, fonts, colors, etc...there are tabs under your word list and you can play around with it however you'd like.

6.  Once you have your image finalized, you can click on Download and Share and save the image as a .png image. OR you can just print it directly from the website.

Here are some more fun examples of images I've created!

This is on my fridge to keep me
motivated to hit my weight loss goals

THAT'S IT! SUPER SIMPLE AND WAY TOO FUN! I'd love to see your creations - if you choose to try this one out, share it on Facebook or you can email me at erinmknowles@gmail.com.

Happy creating, friends!