Organization for the Naturally Unorganized (part 1)

Introduction

 

I believe there are only two kinds of people in the world when it comes to organization. There are the naturally organized people, and everyone else. The naturally organized (the NOs) have cute little mottos like, "A place for everything and everything in its place," while the rest of us, those that I think of as the naturally unorganized (the NUs), can't even find the place for our things, let alone find our things to put them there.

So, how do you know which group you belong in? Well, most of us know in our hearts, but if you are unsure take this little quiz:

1. Have you ever spent more time setting up an organization system than you spent using said system?  
2. If I were to ask you to tell me the specific location of at least one pen, your keys, a pair of scissors, and last month's water bill, would you be unsure or doubtful of where all these items are?
3. Do you want to knit/sew/scrapbook/whatever but the time it would take to set it up would be more than the crafting time you have available?
4. Have you ever missed an activity that you wanted to go to, because you totally forgot about it or remembered the date and time wrong?
5. Have you had to dig through clean, but not folded and put away, laundry in order to get dressed more than twice in a week?

If you answered "yes" to most of these questions, you're in good company. I can answer "yes" to all of them; I am the queen of the NUs. 

But, is there hope for us? Yes, but it's not in the way the NOs would lead you to think. We cannot just do things their way and hope to suddenly become like them. Think about it, you know exactly what I mean. Most of us NUs, if we've been adults for more than a couple of years, have spent time and money on some wonderful, beautiful organization system that will fix all of our problems, only to find that it just becomes something else that doesn't have a place and doesn't get dusted.

The problem with all of the organization systems out there is that they were developed by.... not you. "Huh?," you say. In order for a system to work, I mean really work, it needs to take your individual home, activities, and preferences in mind. For example, I hate to write by hand, so any system that has me setting up a paper calendar that I have to write appointments on is not going to be kept up to date by me. I'll put it off until the calendar is so out of date that it's useless. So, my calendar system is totally digital, and I find keeping it up to date almost effortless.

Anyway, this post is the first of what I plan to be a series on how to organize your home, homeschool, crafts, appointments, and more with your own needs and preferences as your guide. I will be giving lots of examples of how I do things, but only as ways to spark your own creativity to think outside the color-coded, labeled, and shelved box.

Review of All About Reading Pre-level 1

All About Reading is the newest line of products from All About Learning Press, the makers of All About Spelling. All About Reading level pre-1 and level 1 are currently available, with level 2 due out some time this year. At the time of this writing I have completed level pre-1 with one child, and am in the first few lessons of it with another one. I have also recently started level 1.

If I had to say what made All About Reading (AAR) so great in a single, short sentence, it would be, "All About Reading is research based." The author, Marie Rippel, is extremely well read in the research and studies behind what makes successful readers, and AAR focuses on the things that have the most impact on future reading success. Marie terms these "The Big Five Skills" and describes what they are better than I can.

Of these Big Five Skills, phonological awareness is the one most overlooked or underestimated by other learn-to-read programs out there. Phonological awareness is, "

I don't know if it is that they are ignorant of the importance of this skill, or if they assume children develop this skill naturally and don't need to be taught. Some children do develop phonemic awareness naturally; my oldest two children did.

AAR level pre-1 takes your child through the alphabet three times. The first time through focuses on capital letters, the second time on lower case letters, and the final time on the most common sound of each of the letters. This level is "pre-1", because it doesn't teach reading. Rather, it teaches the skills necessary for reading success, skills that most other learn-to-read programs overlook (more on this in a bit). Depending on your child's development and upon your feelings on the better late than early debate, AAR level pre-1 would be appropriate for 3 year olds on up to even 7 or 8 year olds. For me and mine, I find it best for 5 year olds, although I still put it to good use with a 6 year old last year because it wasn't published until just after his 6th birthday.

Like all All About Learning Press products, All About Reading is set up to be taught at the child's pace. Level pre-1 has 78 lessons, but an older child could do 2 lessons a day and a very young child could work at the pace of 1 lesson per week. I used it last year in the second half of Kindergarten doing 1 lesson a day, and I am starting it this year in the second half of preschool aiming for 2 days on each lesson.


In addition to introducing a letter and doing phonological awareness activities, each lesson of level pre-1 also has you sing the alphabet song while pointing out each letter on the chart, read a selection from one of two books (Zigzag Zebra or Lizard Lou), do an ABC Craft Sheet (a sampling of pages my son completed is to the right), do some additional letter activities (the teacher’s manual gives a list of suggestions), and finally 20 minutes of Read Aloud Time is scheduled. You are left to choose the books for reading aloud, but it is scheduled so that you remember the importance of doing it. I use Sonlight for our Read Aloud Time.

I don't use the zebra puppet. As popular as Ziggy seems to be, it's just not in me to talk to a child through a puppet. Too many bad Lamb Chop memories, I guess. My kids have done well with me just reading, "Ziggy says..." and then doing the activity without the puppet. Anyway, if you have similar puppet feelings, just rest assured the program works just fine without it.

Lastly, I thought I'd share an iPod app that I've been using with my youngest as another option for the additional letter activities. The iWriteWords app is a cute and fun way for your little one to practice writing capital and lower case letters, and then words. I like this app better than numerous other free and less expensive ones, because this app teaches letter form the same way that my chosen handwriting curriculum, Handwriting Without Tears, does. Too many of the other apps I found allowed the child to trace the letter any way they wanted too. I know from past experience how important it is to develop the habit of starting letters at the top from the very beginning, or they will never break the habit of starting at the bottom. Anyway, there is an iWriteWords lite. It only includes the letters A, B, and C, capitals and lower case, but it does give you a chance to see if you'll like it before you buy.

Flashcards with 4 Kids at One Time

Last week I did math flashcards with four kids, with four very different abilities, all at once. It was a great review for each of the kids on their own level, and was great fun to boot. I used multiplication flashcards, but it would work with addition flashcards as well. 

Here's how it worked:
I showed the card to my 7 yo and he had to tell me what the two numbers added together equaled. Then I showed the card to my 9 yo and he had to tell me what the numbers multiplied equaled. Then my 12 year old, whose back had been to the flashcard the entire time, had to tell me what the two numbers were after having only heard their sum and their product. Finally my preschooler read off the two numbers.

Did you get that? Let me try again. Using the top card pictured at the right here, my 7 yo old would say, "5", my 9 yo would say "6", and my 12 yo would have to think what two numbers add up to 5 and multiple up to 6. She would answer "2 and 3" and then my preschooler would look at the cards, read off the numbers "3 and 2" and tell the 12 yo that she was right.

All four kids enjoyed the activity so much that they begged to do it more and were disappointed when I told them we would save it to do again next week. 

Anyway, I got this idea for the book If I'm Diapering a Watermelon, Then Where'd I Leave the Baby?: Help for the Highly Distractible Mom by Carol Barnier, although I did modify it to include the preschooler as well. If you have never heard Carol Barnier speak, I highly recommend going out of your way to hear her. A few of her talks can be heard on her website, although it was the one with the same title as the above book and the one titled "Don't Miss the Gift in This Child" that touched me so deeply.

Brown Eyes Blue

This post is mostly about the problems I've been having with running photo retouching actions on my dark eyed but fair skinned daughter. My favorite Photoshop Elements action is 2 Minute Miracle from The CoffeShop Blog, but while it is ideal for my blued eyed boys, it does seem to have issues with my brown eyed girls (and one brown eyed boy).

Here, see what I mean. This is a photo of my baby (who is almost 5, ACK).

This isn't the best of photos, as silly mama didn't think she would want pictures of another child's birthday party. I didn't have my camera with me, so I took this with my iPod. Anyway, the only work done on this photo was cropping and I used the clone stamp tool to clean up some pizza sauce off her check (clone stamp tool on the laptop is almost better than wipies in the purse).

This is the same photo with the 2 Minute Miracle action applied to following the tutorial for the Eye Bright portion of it. I left the opacity of "Bright Eyes" layer at 100%, and as you can see it didn't result in space alien eyes at all. Actually, they look great. Except... it turned her brown eyes blue. A pretty blue, to be sure, but blue nonetheless. I've ran into this problem with other photos as well, although depending on the lighting sometimes it turns her eyes green.

Here's the same photo again, with the same 2 Minute Miracle action, but this time I set the "Bright Eyes" layer to 0%. She looks more like herself, but here her eyes seem a little dull and not quite right to me. Part of the joy that is the 2 Minute Miracle is the way it makes eyes POP, and these just don't.

Same photo, same action, now with the "Bright Eyes" layer set at 30%. It's better than 0%, but there is still a blue-ish cast. When I go lower to 20-15%, you can hardly tell a difference from the 0%. I can live with this, and it has been what I've been using for her photos, but I'm not completely happy.

This time after running the 2 Minute Miracle action I hid the "Bright Eyes" layer and then ran the PowderRoom After Dark action. This action was made for retouching dark complexions, so I hid all of the layers of it except the "Eye Pop" layer and left it at 100% (the skin smoothing and defining layers are just way too much contrast for fair skin). I can't discern much if any difference between this and the photo above, so it's not the solution I'm looking for.

Not Just Pinning

I succumbed to the blog-'o-sphere pressure and finally got myself a Pinterest account a couple weeks ago. However, I don't want to be someone that is always pinning and never doing, so here is some doing proof.

I've been pinning hair styles for ideas to use with my daughters hair, AND I've actually used a few of the ideas over the last week or so.

I took this idea on the left and used it for my preschooler's hair Sunday (on the right, sorry it's not the best of pics).

 

For my pre-teen, I took a tutorial on how to use a headband to create curls without using heat, and made it into a hair style. My daughter (right) obviously doesn't need help in the curls department, but we love the look of her hair wrapped around a headband. It looks like a soft crown of hair. We left the hair hanging down in the back on this day, and added a big pink flower to complete the look.

Workboxes Update

Last August I wrote about the workbox system I was implementing, and I promised to write a follow-up post in January or so. Well, June is more than a little late, but here is the follow-up on our workbox system.

The reason for this follow-up post is simple; many people blog about their wonderful workbox system they are just starting to use, but you don't hear much about what people have been doing for the long term. I, myself, have spent hours putting together a system that didn't last two weeks before, so I think it's important to let people know what has worked for us in the long term.

I am happy to say that we are still using workboxes. 

 

We have changed things from how we started, however. The biggest change is my two oldest kids. My 8th grader didn't start this school year with workboxes of any sort, but rather I was just giving him an assignment checklist. My 6th grader was using a workfolder system (see the August post I linked to in the first paragraph above). Neither of these held up to the test of time, mostly because they required regular updating from me. The workfolder system especially was an epic fail, as it took 10+ minutes daily of my time in order for it to work. 10 minutes isn't much, I suppose, but they were 10 unnecessary minutes and as such they all too often were spent elsewhere.

Even the way the little kids use their workboxes has changed slightly. The whole "take off the numbered square and put it on this grid" thing is gone. First, neither the kids nor I needed that movement of numbers to feel like the work was done. Completing a bin and putting it back is more than enough visually to get the idea across. Second, I have always allowed my kids at least some choice in the order they do their subjects, but me setting up the numbering took all choice away from them. 

Anyway, here is the description of how workboxes work in our homeschool now. We've been doing it this way for months (more months than we did it the other way) and I don't see it changing except I'm thinking of putting their colors on the ends so I can see more easily at a glance whose bin is whose.

Each kid has one bin per subject, more or less. My 8th grader has one bin per hour, as I require an hour from him a day for most subjects, but Spanish and Grammar only take up an hour together total. At the beginning of the school day everyone moves their bins away from their spot under the bookshelves and as they go through their school work they put the bins back one at a time. When they have gone through all their bins they are done for the day. They get to choose what order they want to do their work (I do override their choice as needed, but it isn't often) and that diminishing stack of bins is a great motivator. Many of the subjects don't require set up at all, as they are just "do the next thing" subjects like handwriting, math, and spelling. For history and science for the older kids I either give them a print out check list with lessons that will last them months at a time, or I refer them to the Sonlight Instructor's Guide to look up the assignment on their own. For the younger kids I put some IG pages in the bin with the books for me to use. The only bin, out of all five kids, that requires daily set up is the bin that holds my K'er's page from All About Reading Level Pre-1's Letters and Sounds Activity Book as it needs different craft supplies daily (I promise to do a review of AAR soon, it's WONDERFUL). Well, I've trained my guy that setting up for the next day is part of finishing up for today, so this bin is ready for the next day by the time he puts it away. Plus, that makes him excited for the next day too.

Anyway, that's our system in a nutshell. If you have any questions, ask and I'll give more detail.

PSE Drop Shadows

This is a tutorial for adding shadows to items in Photoshop Elements; I'll be using digital papers but the steps will be the same regardless of what you want to add a shadow to. The screen shots are from PSE version 8, but the concepts apply to all versions. As always, click on any screen shot to see it full sized.

 First we just set up what we want a shadow on. I am using a couple digital papers from Daisy Country Value Collection created by Teresa Loman of Digital Scrapbook Place. I resized and rotated the yellow paper using the Free Transform tool.

Make sure the layer you want to apply a shadow on is selected (darkened) in the Layers bin on the right.

Now open the Effects bin on the right by double clicking on the word "Effects". Then select "Layer Styles" option; the icon is within the smaller red circle. Once that is selected, go to the drop down menu and select "Drop Shadows".

The "Low" option is most similar to what we want our shadow to look like, so we will select it. Double click on it, or select it and hit the "Apply" button.

After double clicking the "Low" icon, or selecting it and hitting "Apply", the fx icon will appear on the right of the layer that the shadow was applied to. See it within the smaller red circle.

 Now we will be working with that fx icon to adjust the drop shadow. Double click on it.

 Once you double click on the fx icon, this pop up menu will appear.

From here you can adjust not only the shadow, but other things as well such as bevels, glow, and stroke. Bevels are like the edges of a finished piece of wood when a router has been used on it. Think of a picture frame. Glow puts highlights and lowlights on an item, and is often used to make it look like metal or plastic. Stroke outlines an item, such as a photo, in solid color. All of these are accessed from the Layer Styles drop down menu in the Effects bin, although Stroke can also be accessed under the top menu option "Edit".

 Here I have changed the settings for the Drop Shadow. The setting of 8, 8, 55 is a good place to start and is adequate for most digital scrapping needs. After inputting the numbers I clicked "OK" and the changes to the shadow were applied. Feel free to adjust the numbers up or down from my recommendations as you desire to get the look you want.

We're done with putting a shadow on this paper.

 Here you can see the same digital papers side by side, one with a drop shadow applied and the other without it. The first helps creates the illusion of realism, giving depth to the image. That is the point of working with shadows in our digital scrapbooking.







Lastly here are just a couple extra tips, shortcuts really, one to make adding shadows a bit quicker and the other will help you personalize PSE's interface to your own preferences. These may not be applicable to earlier versions of PSE. I know they weren't possible with PSE 5, and while I am not sure I don't think they were options with PSE 6 or 7 (if you know otherwise, please let me know).

Once you have your drop shadow set just how you want it on one item, you can easily apply the same shadow with the same settings to another by this method. Right click on the layer in the Layers bin that has the shadow on it. A menu will appear (for some reason my computer didn't want to take screen shots of that menu). On that menu select "Copy Layer Style". Then, once you have your next paper or item in your layout, you can then right click on it in the Layers bin and select "Paste Layer Style". The shadow will then be on that layer with the exact same settings as the other layer.
 

To personalize PSE, right click on the "Low" icon in the Drop Shadow menu and choose the "Add to Favorites" option. 






 Now go above the work space to the top menu and click on "Windows" (within the smaller red circle). From that drop menu choose "Favorites" and the Favorites bin will appear floating (within the larger red circle).

Now drag this floating Favorites bin into the docked bins on the right, by clicking and dragging the tab with the word "Favorites" on it and putting it below the Layers bin. A glowing blue line will appear to show you where the bin will be when you let go of the mouse and "drop" it.

 You can leave the bin there, or move it up or down by clicking and dragging it to where you want it to be. I like to organize my bins by having Undo History and Favorites in the same location, and I can access one or the other of them by clicking on the tabs. I added the Undo History bin from the "Windows" menu the same way that I added the Favorites bin. There are a lot of bin options in the "Windows" menu. Feel free to play with them to find what set up works best for you.

In my Favorites bin you can also see the icon for "Masks Layers". It is for using layer masks in PSE, and I did a tutorial about layer masks previously that you may be interested in. It is more technical than this one, but I have been told that it is understandable even to a PSE newbie.

PSE Free Transform

This is a tutorial for Photoshop Elements' free transform tool, with a focus on resizing and rotating items without skewing or distorting the item. The screen shots are from PSE version 8, but the concepts apply to all versions. As always, click on any screen shot to see it full sized.

 Start by putting your photo (or other item you wish to resize) in your working area and selecting the Move tool. It is the little crosshairs and cursor icon first in the Tools bin on the left (within the red circle). However, you can also select the Move tool with the keyboard shortcut V (just hit the letter V).  Make sure the "Show Bounding Box" option is check above (where the red checkmark is) and that the photo is bounded by those little squares on the corners and half way along each side (also shown within the red circle).

 Now get the Free Transform tool going. Free Transform is a function of the Move tool, so that is why I had us start with it. With the Move tool selected, put your cursor on one of the bounding box squares and click. This automatically gets the Free Transform tool open. In addition, you can use the keyboard shortcut of holding the control key and hitting the letter T (ctrl+T) to select the Free Transform tool at any time, whether the Move tool is selected or not.

Notice that the bounding box on the photo changed slightly, now that the Free Transform tool is in action. It went from dotted lines between the squares to solid lines between. Also notice that the menu above the working space has also changed.

 When you begin to resize your photo, you need to verify that the "Constrain Proportions" box is checked (notice red checkmark). Now click and drag one of the corners of the photo to make it bigger or smaller (note, in the program the cursor will change to look like a small double headed black arrow when you are on the corner). Notice that the percent resized is equal for both width and height, designated W: and H: within the red circle (both are 44.4% here).

 This screen shot shows what happens when you try to click and drag a corner of the photo when "Constrain Proportions" is not checked. The result is what is called a skewed or distorted photo, with the percent changed being unequal for the width and height (74.7% and 56.2% respectively).

 This last screen shot simply shows rotating or tilting a photo using the Free Transform tool. Put the cursor over the little circle that appears below the bottom center of the bounding box. The cursor will change into a little circle made up of little black arrows when there. Then click and drag right or left to rotate or tilt the photo.

The tool item that is underlined in red here shows the degree of rotation. It's nice sometimes to know the exact degree of rotation so that you can match up exact angles on other items, if you need to do so.

When you finish resizing and rotating your photo, simply click on the green checkmark that appears below it whenever the Free Transform tool is selected. Doing this makes your changes. Clicking on the red circle with a line through it undoes your changes.

How my life would be better with a serger.

Sew, Mama, Sew Blog has asked the question, "How would your life be better with a serger?" At times like this I wish I was witty or clever or funny, but the simple truth is I am not these things and my attempts to be so tend to be rather pathetic. Instead, I'll do what I do best, which is detailed and probably too wordy. Hey, everyone has to be good a something. So, here goes.

My life would be better with a serger because:

1. My limited sewing time would be much more productive.

   This is how my school/family/dining room looked like this afternoon, and it's an all too common state. Today we took the time to clean it up before dinner, but sometimes I sew instead. I'm a homeschool mama of five, teaching high school Biology, preschool shapes and colors, and almost everything in between. I do well to get even two or three hours of sewing per week, and I get that time because I let other things go in order to have it. If I had a serger, just think of how much more I could accomplish in that two or three hours.

2. I find myself drawn to difficult fabrics and complicated construction.

   My pre-teen daughter needs more skirts and pants, so I decided to take a pair of too short jeans and convert them into a skirt by cutting them off just below the zipper and adding a skirt. Did I choose a simple quilting cotton and a straight forward A-line skirt? No way. I'm using an airy gauze that is requiring french seems, and I am doing a multi-layered gathered skirt, all on a 20+ year old 6-stitch Kenmore. It's going to look so great when it's finished, but those multiple fluttering layers all need teeny tiny narrow hems, meticulously and time consumingly done. If I had a serger, I wouldn't have to do french seams and I'd be doing rolled hems on all those tiers. The skirt would be done by now, and I'd be on to another project by now.

3. Lastly, no one ever gives sergers away.
   We are a one income family, and I just don't foresee being able to afford a serger any time within the next few years. People frequently want to clear out their closets and will give sewing machines away to someone (like me) that will use it. Over the years I've been giving 4 working sewing machines, and have been offered a few that don't work. But no on ever gives away a serger. People that have sergers don't have them sitting around in closets; they are using them. If I won the Husqvarna Viking s21, I wouldn't have to pine for a serger any longer.

Thank you, Sew, Mama, Sew, for your generosity in so many things in so many ways. Thank you for the mere chance at such a wonderful, high-end serger. I have 7 people (5 kids, my husband, and myself) I'm sewing for, plus we just bought a home that needs lots for decor and there is always gifts and charity projects to be made. Having a serger of my very own would be a dream come true.