diy chore chart

everyone seems to have their own take on chore charts. i was looking for something that somehow motivated my children to work and still looked nice in my home. this is what I came up with. it's pretty easy and inexpensive to make and, so far (it's only been used for two weeks) the kids are pretty happy with it.


head to a home improvement store and pick up a two foot square piece of plywood. try to find one in relatively good condition without a bunch of wood splits.


in the paint department, search for a primer that creates a magnetic surface. paint the board with several coats of this primer. the more coats, the more magnetic the board seemed to be.

once the primer has dried well, apply a coat of colored spray paint. or takes a few coats for the best coverage.

purchase some wood moulding at the home improvement store. paint the moulding in a contrasting color. once paint is dry, cut the moulding to form a frame around the board.

attach the moulding using a nail gun or very small finishing nails. touch up paint.

find a fun coordinating paper. cut it into half inch strips and attach to the wood using a decoupage medium. allow to dry.


purchase empty buttons you can fill yourself. remove the pins and attach magnets using a glue gun.

fill the buttons with coordinating paper and your chore assignments.


if you are hanging your chart, attach ribbons with a glue and nail gun.


i hung mine using a wreath holder to make the buttons within reach of the kiddos...

happy choring!

diy chore chart--guest post by allison @ a few sprinkles short of a sundae

i admit it openly. i am not good at making my children clean up. i don’t clean up, so i guess they figure they don’t need to either, right? but the countless number of cars and barbie parts scattered across my floor are enough to make me want to get rid of every toy in my house. every. toy.

but seeing as we, and other people, have spent money on these great little foot jabbers, it would be nice to keep them for more than week before i toss them out in a way that would make buzz lightyear tremble in fear. so as i scoured pinterest one day i came across an idea for a chore chart.

and since my 5-year-old is greatly motivated by anything quarters and dollars, i thought i could make a chore chart where the kids could earn money for doing things they should already do anyway. but whatever, don’t judge.

so here is what i made:

it really was pretty simple to make. i bought myself a shiny new cookie sheet and used my old one for this project (win/win!). i went to a local store and got yellow spray paint and sprayed that sucker down. allow it to dry a day or two before doing anything else with it, but that will give you time to make the other parts.

then i had to think of chores and how much each was worth. i will tell you, i apparently overpriced some of these things because in one day my daughter made off with $2.50 from doing all the chores. be cheap!

i got magnets and would be sticking each chore onto a magnet to put on the cookie sheet. still with me? good! i started off printing the chores out onto little circles, but then i remembered that my children can’t read yet, so i had better use pictures. then simply cut out the little circles and glue them onto the magnets (i used my xyron sticker maker, but use what you have).

since i have two children, i needed to make a side for each child. i pulled out my cricut and made their names, again using the xyron sticker maker to put adhesive on them.

simply put the names where you want them (or just one name if you are only doing this for one child – but seriously, make them all do chores). i then used bright colored duct tape to divide the areas for each child and the chores to be done. voila!

now each child can do a chore and slide the appropriate magnet over to his or her side and at the end of the day we pay them. like i said before, though, one day my daughter managed to make $2.50. my son, on the other hand, is not nearly as motivated by money and really doesn’t care about cleanliness or money.

did the chore chart save our home from the producers of hoarders being called in? not really, but it was fun to make and it has motivated the kids to help with the dishes and make their beds a little more. so i’ll call that a win!

allison is a stay-at-home mom of two, a biological daughter who is 5 and an adoptive son who is 4. she is also wife to one husband (and one is plenty, thank you very much), who is 31. when not blogging or ignoring her children’s pleas to help find their shoes again, allison can be found attempting to write novels in what little spare time she has left between facebook, twitter, pinterest, and, you know, parenting. she is the genius behind the blog “a few sprinkles short of a sundae.”