Wednesday, May 06, 2009

FHE Chart Assignment

I'm off to England tomorrow so while I'm gone I've got an assignment for you.

I want a new Family Home Evening chart for our family. Family Home Evening is a time set aside, usually Monday night, for building family relationships. Usually we study and discuss religious topics and/or do an activity like a game or service. Traditionally an FHE "program" consists of:
Opening song
Opening prayer
Lesson
Activity
Closing song
Closing prayer
Treats

It's also traditional for each of these items to be assigned to family members on a rotating basis. Thus the need for a chart. In my family growing up my mom made a chart by covering a thick posterboard with cloth, then making two rows of cloth pockets shaped like flower pots, with the names of each assignment on them. Each family member had a flower made from cloth and pipe cleaners with our names on them, and there was one flower in each pot. It hung on the wall in the hall so all week we could see what our assignment would be for Monday night, then after FHE we would move the flowers over one for next week's assignments.

I'd prefer not to have to make my own chart, but I'm coming to the realization I'll probably have to. I just haven't seen anything acceptable out there. For example, all of these ideas make me want to puke. These charts are not so offensive, just boring. At Women's Conference last week in Utah I got re-inspired to hold regular Family Home Evening, and the girls are big enough to take on assignments. With a chart we could be organized about it - a visual reminder to all of us to prepare and make that time a priority. I spent the better part of some of the sessions doodling, trying to come up with design ideas.

And here we run into a manifestation of a larger issue I have. When it comes to design, I know what I like and what I don't like but I suck at coming up with my own ideas. I'm already struggling with this right now as I prepare to move into my own home - my FIRST own home - and try to create a cohesive design vision for it. It's painful and I know eventually I'll need professional help.

But back to the chart. Has anyone else run into this problem? Have any of you seen a good chart - and by good I mean creative, stylish, modern, clever, fresh - or anything that could inspire one or be like one? I'm not thrilled with my own designs, and even less thrilled with the prospect of executing them, but I will if I have to. The main thing is that this is going to be hanging on the wall in my home, so it has to look like art or equally classy, not like a school project. I am very, very open to ideas. Especially you designers and artists out there, or anyone who knows one. I need everyone's help here. You have 10 days.

2 comments:

Mecham said...

I wish I had something to share here, but we do it all wrong. We assign things spur-of-the-moment and it's works for us for now. I would like to make a chart (and have made poster board ones in the past) but I don't have any good ideas of what I want. Tona has a birdhouse one that was nice- ask her about it.

Disco Mom said...

Sounds like Tona needs to step it up in her sisterly duty. I have a rough idea for something that looks like a tree; the branches are assignments and there are birds with everyone's names that move around and attach either by hook & nail or velcro. But I cringe thinking what something I make will look like.

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