Chore Chart Leads to Sewing Project

My kids are 2 and 4 years old.

The 4 year old wants to be a big kid who gets allowance.
The 2 year old wants to do everything the 4 year old does.
They both want to buy toys.

So we instituted chores and allowance for completing chores at my house last week. Why should we parents be stuck paying for all of their toys with nothing for us in return!?! We shouldn't, I say!

Our method for logging the chores is a dry erase chore chart. That way we can modify it however we want (like to add more chores MUAHAHAHAHA) and it's eco-friendly because it's reusable.

I hung our eco-friendly dry erase chore chart on the wall at kid height and called it good.

But it wasn't good.

The dry erase markers that I bought for this didn't come with a pouch and I had no place to put the markers near the board. So I slapped them in a sandwich bag and tacked them to the wall next to the chore chart.

It looked hideous.

We can't have hideousness all out in the open for anyone stopping by to see! No, no, not when I can sew.

So I drew up some plans:

Wow, I really need to get a better eraser...and scanner...

And went about the business of modifying my reversible pouch tutorial to make it!

As you can see, I changed the shape of the pouch and added a rivet to the top for hanging.

Here is the finished pouch:

Funny story about the rivet on this pouch...
So this was the first time I've ever put a rivet on a project.

I used the little hand riveting tools that you can buy next to the rivets and a hammer (as directed). Yeah...the directions on the packs aren't very good. Or maybe I need to work on my reading comprehension skills a bit. I don't know what, but whatever the problem was with the directions, I used the tool wrong and the rivet tool got stuck INSIDE of the rivet. And I couldn't get it out.

I had to make some delicate maneuvers involving a chisel, hammer, and flat head screw driver to get the tool off. So I'll be posting a how-to on riveting soon. Or maybe a how-not-to. I haven't decided yet.

I'm thinking in the future that this bag could be given to a certain little boy to hold his pens or treasures of some kind. All he'd need is a piece of rope strung through the rivet to close it with.

And that's how a chore chart lead me to a sewing project.

What have you been making lately?