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Projects· The Art of Homemaking

The Art of Homemaking—A Chart For All Specimens

Yesterday I posted a tutorial on how to make this: A “Cereal Specimen Chart” that I made for my husband for Father’s Day. For my husband it’s the perfect gift…he really like personalized gifts, we met in high school where we made our leaf specimen collection together, and he LOVE LOVE LOVES cereal. SO it really was a perfect gift.

But as I was making it I thought how it could be made differently to fit what other Dad’s might like. For instance what if you had a dad who loves candy?

You could roundup some of his favorites and glue them on your tags and onto a painted board.

You wouldn’t even have to give them the “common” and “scientific” names like I did for the cereal. Because you know everyone who looks at it is going to start naming off what all the pieces are. (Ok, you’ve got your M&M’s, and Life Savers, Dots….)

And the other great thing about the food specimen chart is when you give them the chart you can also give them all the left over food you didn’t use. (For example: I have 15 boxes of cereal hidden in the basement for my husband…I only needed 1 piece from every box and now on Sunday he’ll have a whole cereal buffet waiting for him to devour. It will be his favorite breakfast ever.)
But what if you dad isn’t a food guy? What if he’s a DIY tool man?

No Problem! Slap some nuts, bolt, staples, and washers on your tags and you are ready to go. (I stole these off Jon’s workbench in the garage…he’ll never even notice they are missing.)

And how to label them??? Don’t worry about it. Let him do it—with one of his gi-normous marking pencils that he writes all over the Sheetrock with…or with his annoying label maker…he can wow you with his knowledge of bolt dimensions and their variety of uses.
But Dad’s aren’t the only ones who might enjoy a specimen chart…what about you. I made this one for our kitchen. (We eat massive amounts of pasta around this house.)

And believe it or not I made more of these things….only one problem…the battery died in my camera and is charging right now…boo.
My favorite one was to put out by our garden…picture crazy green frame with burlap inside and then orange tags with all the different kinds of seeds we planted. Ah, it’s lovely. (I’ll take photos later.)
But the point is you can personalize them any way you want. I made Jon’s on cork board with push pins. But then I made others just by gluing the pieces on boards I found in the garage and painted. It’s up to you.
And as for other ideas for specimens, well, you could use: soda pop caps, jelly bellys, fishing hooks, game pieces (you can find old games at thrift stores and the pieces would look so fun!), different kinds of nuts, different kinds of Doritoes or potato chips, toenail clippings (just kidding) but the possibilities really are endless. I could go on forever but I’ll try to control myself…for a minute…
…ok I can’t!!! I’m such a nerd. I totally love this project and will be revisiting it soon with other ideas—for kids and for women—I can’t stop….I tried, really I did, but I can’t.
…so, until I get myself under control Happy Father’s Day and Happy creating!

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