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I recently read an article in Family Fun magazine about a 7 year old who started a business taking out his neighbor’s trash. After reading it, I told Francis about it and encouraged her to start thinking of things she could do to earn a little extra spending money- because she’s 7 too. She responded,” I don’t want to take out other people’s trash.” And really, who can blame her? I hate taking out the trash. So, I said,”Francis, the key is to come up with something you like doing and see if you can get people to pay you for it.”  A few hours later, she said she had a great idea, “I’ll have an art stand – like a lemonade stand- and sell my art.”  Now, that sounds good, but I know Francis. She loves the idea of lemonade stands, but put her in the heat and ask her to speak to strangers and it’s not always a winning combination (George is typically our lemonade hustler.) So we continued to talk through the idea. I asked her what she liked to draw and she said she could draw houses really well. So right then and there – the idea of “Artwork by Francis” was born. She would paint “portraits” of people’s homes. She designed an order form sheet with check boxes and such (I need to find and photograph it) and asked me to “do it on my computer.” And within a few days we asked our dear friend, Miss Sarai, if she would like to be her first commission. She said, “yes!” and promptly filled out her order form.

We then took a walk that evening and snapped a photo of her house to be sure we could remember all the details. 😉

Then Francis got to work:

And then worked off and on the next couple of weekends.

And here she is with the final painting! She’s a little sweaty because I had to pull her away from jump roping to snap this photo.

I love it so much! I’m so jealous. I’m gonna have to be her second customer.

She was so anxious to deliver it this afternoon. And imagine her face when Miss Sarai gave her $20!

Then we came home and she asked to play/type on our typewriter. Trying to get some work done, I didn’t want to pull it all out so I said, “No, let’s do it another day.” She then suggested, “How about I type Miss Sarai a thank you note.” Well, geez… I can’t hardly turn that down. So, of course, I set it up for her and this is what she typed.

I love this girl. A thoughtful heart and a keen negotiator. She absolutely, no doubt about it, got her Grandma Carns’s genes. 😉 Francis, I’m so so proud of you. You did a beautiful job and I had so much fun spending time with you on this project.