INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Buy a leather stretching spray that you can spray directly onto the leather to stretch it. The spray should cause the leather to become stretchy and soft. These sprays are often used on shoes and clothing items, so it's important to wear the leather item after you've sprayed it to ensure it stretches properly. If you're applying the leather stretching spray to something other than clothing or shoes, you'll need to hang the leather and weigh down an end with something heavy to stretch it out. Leather stretching sprays can be found at most big-box and shoe stores, or you can buy them online. The sprays typically cost $5-$15. There are leather conditioners that you can buy that will help soften your leather. They typically come in a liquid or cloth form, ranging in cost from $5-$20. These conditioners are great if you're trying to make furniture, car interiors, or other accessories more pliable, but they also work well on leather clothing and shoes. Most conditioners will require you to apply the conditioner to the leather using a cloth. You'll wait roughly 2 hours for the leather to absorb the conditioner before wiping away any excess residue. Shoe stretchers are usually wooden or plastic inserts that you put in your shoe to stretch it out. You can buy shoe stretchers that will target specific areas of the shoe that you wish to be stretched. Shoe stretchers cost an average of $20. You can also take your shoes to a professional to have them stretched. Professionals will have better quality and more complex stretching machines, allowing them to stretch out your shoes in a much faster amount of time.

SUMMARY: Apply a leather stretching spray for an easy fix. Use a conditioner to make leather soft and bendable. Stretch out your shoes using a shoe stretching machine.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Make a circular cut through the bark and into the hardwood underneath. The bark should peel off fairly easily. Make sure none of the cambium layer (the green layer under the bark) is left.

SUMMARY: Cut around the base of the branch where the roots will sprout. Make a duplicate cut about two branch widths below the first cut. Make a straight cut to connect the first two cuts. Peel off the bark between the first two cuts.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. This system has been used by business and government leaders and training managers to institute and teach effective training programs. Specific: State exactly what the learner should know how to do with specific objectives. All objectives should be clearly defined and not subject to debate or interpretation. Measurable: Observe and quantify the behavior with measurable objectives. The objectives should be consistent for each learner, and subject to standard evaluation. Attainable: Make sure the task or action is something that can actually be achieved with attainable objectives. Setting learners up for failure will result in unmet objectives and demoralized students. Relevant: Determine that this task is important and necessary with relevant objectives. There should be nothing arbitrary or optional about the tasks written in the objectives. Time-bound: Set achievable deadlines and management schedules with time-bound objectives. There can be no open-ended tasks in effective objectives. Set and enforce deadlines. Using the bookkeeper example from other parts, the SMART acronym would be applied in the following way: Specific: The bookkeeper should be able to record the credit account transactions. Measurable: The bookkeeper will record transactions correctly 100 percent of the time. Attainable: The bookkeeper's task is not so different from current entries. Relevant: The bookkeeper's task is essential to the business's accounting procedures. Time-bound: The bookkeeper must learn to make the new entries by the 1st of March. Try not to have objectives that you cannot measured objectively, such as making a student "appreciate" or "be aware" of something. While these are no doubt important, you have no real way of measuring the success of teaching a student these things. For the previous example, don't write an objective like, "the bookkeeper must be aware of how the new entries are made." Make the objective more direct with "they must be able to record the new entries." Evaluate the students, and give them an opportunity to evaluate the training. Some part of the training should be a test of the knowledge gained during the training. After all, knowledge is useless without experience and practice. Remember that this may require multiple repetitions before the performance standard can be reached. For the previous example, this might be that the bookkeeper will be given several hypothetical examples of this type of transaction and will be asked to record them correctly. Using all of the aforementioned criteria, refine your training objective until it is exactly the way you want it. Again, make sure all aspects of the objective are clear and measurable. For the previous example, an example would be, "The bookkeeper, given the business's existing accounting software, must be able to record the new credit account entries with 100 percent accuracy by the 1st of March."

SUMMARY: Use the SMART acronym to make sure the training objective can be evaluated. Avoid using objectives that cannot be measured. Include an objective for evaluation. Finalize your training objective.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: You will need at least 65 metal bottle caps, acrylic paint, fine paintbrushes, adhesive craft magnets, and paint sealant. Be sure to have thick cardboard and a hot glue gun on hand. They may also be required. You may also use spray paint as a first "primer" coat instead of slowly painting each by hand. If the magnets are too thin, they won't be able to make contact with surfaces and stick properly. Glue squares of cardboard to the inside of the bottle caps if your magnets are too thin. Lay down a solid base coat and let it dry before adding details. Paint at least 31 caps one color for the dates of the month. Paint at least 7 caps a second color, one for each day of the week. Paint at least 12 caps a third color for the names of each month. For special occasions, you can paint the remaining caps additional colors. Or, you can reuse one of the three basic colors. Use a fine brush to paint on your labels. Number each of your date caps 1-31. Write abbreviations on your month and day of the week caps. Paint symbols for special events (like balloons for birthdays or a heart for Valentine's Day). Without the sealant, acrylic can chip away. Wait for the paint to completely dry before sealing and then wait for the sealant to dry before moving on. A spray on sealant will take less time, but a brush on sealant will work fine, too. Cut the magnets into appropriate-sized squares. Remove the tape to reveal the glue side. Press the sticky side of a magnet either into the inside of each bottle cap or on top of the cardboard. The best thing about this method is how easy it is to change how the tiles are laid out. You can spread your calendar over a whole freezer or carefully line it up inside a locker. It's also incredibly easy to transport. Just put the pieces in a small box or bag, and you can take them anywhere.

SUMMARY:
Gather your materials. Make sure your magnets are thicker than the inside of the bottle caps. Separate your caps into at least three different groups and paint them different colors. Add details to your caps. Apply the paint sealant. Attach sticky magnets to the bottle caps. Arrange your calendar however you want.