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Free Homeschool Resources Every Friday from The Old Schoolhouse Store

Make Reusable Sandwich Bags

Since I showed you how to make fold over baggies to carry chips and carrots in, I thought I would also show you how we made sandwich bags. I used the same PUL fabric from Very Baby. I think for sandwich bags you could use any fabric that you wouldn’t mind [...]

Retro Santa Tree Decoration

Last weekend, all of the women in my family met up at my mom’s house for a craft day.
Here’s what our four generations of girls created together.

Here’s how we made it.
Supplies:
red crepe paper
white crepe paper
fine glitter
thin wire
wire cutters
narrow silver ribbon
glue – we used a glue gun
double sided tape or glue stick
santa scrapbooking paper
coordinating scrapbooking paper [...]

Homemade Halloween – Wizard of Oz

We like to have themes for Halloween at our house. In past years, we have done Veggie Tales and Peter Pan. This year we decided to do the Wizard of Oz.
Dorothy
I used McCalls pattern 4948 to make Dorothy’s costume. For the shoes, I spray painted some old shoes red and then [...]

Sharing Seeds

I have found that when we save our seeds, we usually end up with more than we need. So, we made homemade seed packets and decorated them. We plan to give them as gifts.
We printed this seed packet pattern onto cardstock. Then we cut them out, folded them and decorated. The [...]

I Dyed my Bedspread

I really like the bedspread we normally use, but it is very dark and wintery looking.  I was wanting a lighter look for summer, but didn’t want to go out and spend a lot of money.  I had a white bedspread we had used back when we had a guest bedroom before kids.  Since my [...]

Inexpensive Father’s Day Gift – Make Fire Starters

We enjoy having a campfire, both here at home and while camping.  So, we make these fire starters frequently for my husband.  We have also given them as gifts to other camping family members.
Items Needed:
Pine Cones – we have an abundance of these on our property
Wax – we use broken ones or the ends of [...]

Make Fold Over Baggies for Picnics

I wanted to have some reusable baggies we could use for picnics and my husband’s lunchbox.  Of course, it is the green thing to do to reduce the amount of trash we put in our landfills.  But, I will admit that my main motivation is economics.  It seems sillly to keep buying baggies if I [...]

How to Hand Make Paper

We keep a bag in our school room to put recyclable papers into.  When I was putting everything away at the end of our school year, I noticed what a nice variety of colors of papers it had in it.  I decided I’d try to make some homemade papers with some of them.  I think [...]

Mother’s Day Gift Idea

This year for Mother’s Day, I made silhouettes of the children to give to the grandmothers.  I bought 5×7 picture frames from Dollar Tree and painted them black.  I also put a craft paint varnish on them.

I took profile pictures of each child, then made them the size I wanted using a graphics program.  I [...]

Replacing Paper Towels with Crocheted Dishcloths

We have been working on eliminating the need for certain paper products from our home.  We have stopped buying paper napkins and now use cloth napkins.  We are also trying to stop using paper towels.   I used to use paper towels for cleaning, washing dishes and wiping up spills.
It was easy to quit using paper [...]