"Sit in Your Seat" Pants

I want to apologize for my extended absence.  To be perfectly honest, I recently had a miscarriage, which left our family going through a pretty hard time.  I'm sharing this because I believe that if more women talked about things like this, we wouldn't feel so hopelessly alone when it happens to us.  I'm finally getting back into my crafting; it's as good as therapy for me, so I hope to be posting more now.  Please understand, though, if it takes me some time to get back into things.  Thank you so much for giving me a good reason to get out of bed, a reason to do something rewarding and productive.

On to the pants!  My seven year old son has a habit of standing at the dinner table.  He stands with one foot on the ground, the other foot kneeling on his chair.  He also just plain stands, hanging off the table.  This irks me to no end; I cannot even count how many times a day I tell him to seat in his seat.  So what did I do?  I turned to my sewing machine and created this:

SIT IN YOUR SEAT PANTS

Yes, I am the meanest mom ever.  I even took pictures of him wearing the pants, although I did promise him I wouldn't put his face on my blog.  Let me tell you, though, that no matter how hard he tried, he just could not get out of that chair.

They were so simple to make.  I grabbed a pair of sweat pants from Wal-Mart, under $5.  I picked a size a little bigger than normal so that he could put them on over his shorts, also hoping they'll last for a while.  I had him put the pants on so that I could measure where on his pants legs to place the ribbon.  I put the pants on the chair to measure the length of the ribbon.  Then I pinned and sewed the grosgrain ribbon to the back of his pants.  Done!  Simply put on the pants, then tie the ribbon under the seat.  Done!  No more getting up from the table!

Pretty funny, right?  DISCLAIMER: In all honesty, these were just a joke.  I wouldn't actually tie him to the chair for dinner; I'm not that mean!  But they do make for a nice threat... "If you stand up one more time, I WILL make you put your 'Sit in Your Seat' pants on!"

Disobedience Dimes

I know that it must appear that my children are little heathens, based upon all of the chore charts and discipline crafts I come up with.  It's not true (all the time), they just need a little help along the way.  My newest creation is Disobedience Dimes.  Each time that they are disobedient, rude, whiny, etc., they have to pay a dime to the Disobedience Dimes jar.  Don't worry--I have to pay into it, too, if I'm rude.  They are earning money by doing their chores, but know that if they want to keep all of that money, they need to be on good behavior.  I'm not a horribly mean mom; I do give warnings and freebies sometimes.  So far, the results have been promising!

This was my first try at rosettes.  So simple!  This rosette covers the words on the back of the jar.

I couldn't find the metal cover for the jar, so I just used paper coated in Mod Podge, then cut a slit into it.