Use A Photo to Make a Handmade Greeting Card

See this adorable cat? (I'm just a tiny bit biased--she was ours. We lost her a few years ago, but we keep her memory close.)  Lucy was taking time to smell the flowers. LET'S ALL DO THAT MORE OFTEN. 

Now, another challenge to myself this week is to create a card using this photo.  (I'm going to throw out the ideas first, and then show you the final result in a new post.  And I'd love for you to show me how you used the ideas too!)

Treasure Hunt Notes ~ A Reading Game

One of my (many!) early career aspirations was to become a preschool teacher, so I really enjoyed spending time at home with my kids (well, I usually enjoyed it!) when they were little.

We were often in the living room, singing and dancing to a Spanish cassette tape (cassette tapes, whaaat?),  playing memory games, or writing little stories to make into books created from the wallpaper sample books we'd collect. There was a little paint store, not far from our house, that always had a bunch of old wallpaper sample books to give away.  It was one of my daughter's favorite places, and the wallpaper samples were wonderful, pretty free paper.

My inner child and my inner teacher thrived.

Many of the activities we did involved letters, books, and reading. (I'm a reading tutor!)

One of the fun, simple things we did as my kids were learning to read was a treasure hunt inside the house. The treasure hunt required reading multiple simple clues that eventually led to a prize.

Brush Lettering with Crayola Markers

Recently, I've learned Crayola markers can be used for brush lettering. So I wanted to try it. It works!

Now, I do have a lot of brush markers already... (Obsessed, remember?)  Maybe, though, you want to give brush lettering a whirl, and you don't have a brush marker yet.

Welcome to the weekly Home Matters Linky Party. A great place to come, share your blog posts, and make new friends. 

Home Matters Linky Party #109!

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 Thanks for stopping by Home Matters and partying with us!

Fun Ideas for Your Fall Parties and Crafts

I'm partnering with Oriental Trading for this post. Oriental Trading provided the products (which I chose), and the opinions are 100% my own.







 I literally scared  Sunny with the scream I let out when I saw this Ewok dog costume on Oriental Trading's website,  because it is so adorable. (Yes, they have kids' and adults' costumes too. Amazing ones!)   In the past, Sunny has been a princess for Halloween, a referee, and I think she was a clown once... But the Ewok wins.

As soon as I put it on Sunny, she curled right up and went to sleep. Cozy and warm!

Multisensory Gel Bag or Board

Senora Schlatter was my Spanish teacher in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. She was amazing and was one of the biggest influences on my own teaching style. The first two years, our group was small, and we learned colors and numbers with a game called Lo Tengo (which was actually Bingo. Well, it literally translates to "I Have It.") We learned the Spanish names for the items in the room with labeled index cards--la silla (the chair), la mesa (the table), el lapiz (the pencil), etc.  It was so much FUN to learn Spanish. (Learning Spanish that early also helped me a lot in Spanish classes all the way through college.)  But, this post isn't about Spanish.

Flash forward to reading tutor me.  I have found that keeping kids engaged, the way Senor Schlatter did, is key to keeping them learning. If you have a preschooler at home, learning should be about play and fun anyway.

And this gel board is fun.

I have seen many versions of this gel board online, and I instantly fell in love with it when I saw one.

Welcome to the weekly Home Matters Linky Party. A great place to come, share your blog posts, and make new friends. What a week I've had! I truly hope yours wasn't as crazy.  (My computer died, but I'm back with a much faster model, so I'm grateful for that, despite all of the hassle!)  I'm so glad you're here for the party.

Home Matters Linky Party #101!

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