Apple ABC and 123 Games and Ideas with Ketchen's Kindergarten

I'm so excited for today's guest blogger. Arianne of Ketchen's Kindergarten is a good friend of mine in real life-she teaches next door to me! She is an amazing teacher with tons of fun ideas on how to make our lives as teachers more organized (I love her dearly for this) and on how to make learning more fun for our little ones. I'm so lucky to get to teach with her everyday. She started a teacher blog last year and she shares the most fun (and helpful!) ideas on there. Even if you don't teach you could find lots of great ideas and printable games and activities to use at home for practice with your kids. She's a computer whiz and creates the best free printables. You've got to head on over to her blog and look around!
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Hi all! My name is Arianne - I'm from Ketchen's Kindergarten! I am absolutely delighted to be guest blogging at Miss Lovie. Allie and I are teammates - not only is she an awesome crafter/craft blogger, she's a fab Kinder teacher!

So I'll be honest (always best right?!?). Technically, I'm not all that crafty. I can't sew (much to my Momma's trying), don't always have a vision for crafty things and would much rather be creating on the computer! I am a digital person - and really really really (that last one is for good measure...haha) love creating on the computer. It sometimes gets a little out of hand (just ask Allie about my love of fonts!).

Back to School for me is a time of excitement, craziness and just in general being really busy! Even though it's cliche, my mind always goes to apples for back to school! I wanted to share some fun activities that you can do with any Kinder or preschool kiddo - apple themed of course! 

Any little gadget makes learning more fun right? Enter the "Apple of my Eye" glasses. Have your little learner put them on when reading letters, making applesauce or pretending to be a cook at home!

After putting on your apple glasses, why not play a quick game of capital and lowercase letter matching? These types of games are really versatile - you can make it into a game of memory, a more physical game (run and find me the letter ___) or even use them as a guide to make some apple scented playdoh letters!

Source: thepickyapple.com via Julie on Pinterest

Grab a dice and some fun pompoms to play roll and cover! This simple game helps with number recognition, counting and is just plain fun!

Last but not least, add some apple fun to your home or classroom with this September banner! These are so easy to put together and add just the right amount of decoration to your space! Print, cut and tape it together. If your super crafty, there’s a rumor that you could even sew fabric across the top…I wouldn’t know anything about that (remember? This girl doesn’t sew!!!). 

Thanks so much for checking out this post! Allie’s back to school event is in full swing – so be sure to come back all next week for more fun!

Click on any of the pics below to download any of the apple items featured above! 

 

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Thanks, Arianne! LOVE it. I kind of love apple ideas for the beginning of school even if it is cliche. There's so much you can do with that theme during the fall. If you loved this post, you'll love her blog. Here are some of my other favorites from Ketchen's Kindergarten:

1. Dynamite Valentines with Printable, 2. LOTS of math Journals, 3. Dr. Seuss ideas, 4. Pirate games and activities, 5. School Calendar Printable

Thanks, Arianne for sharing today! Cute, as always. 

I hope you enjoyed today's Back to School post. 

Check out all the Back to School ideas here.

And be sure to come back tomorrow for another fun guest post! 

Flag Bunting Tutorial and Free Printable Template

You may remember this sweet little paper flag bunting from back in May when I threw Mr. Lovie a 30th birthday party. I made this bunting to hang on top of the torn fabric garland I made that went over the food table. 

If you want to make your own torn fabric garland, you should! They're easy and beautiful...I got the idea for mine at Kojo Designs! Since I made my own flags for the bunting, I thought I'd go ahead and share the template I made up and how I made it. It's totally easy and I'm sure most of you wouldn't need a tutorial on this, but here it is anyway, just in case! 

 Materials:

White card stock

Scrapbook paper (you can fit 2 flags per large square)

Flag Bunting Template

Ribbon

Glue

Exact-o Knife

Pencil

Marker 

(for drawing letters or you can make letters out of something else)

First, make your flags. Print template onto white card stock once. Cut out. This is your template. Use your pencil and template to trace flags onto scrapbook paper and circles onto white card stock. Cut those out. Draw letters on white circles (or use die cuts, or whatever).  

Glue circles on each flag.  Glue them lower than you would think. Not completely centered-just below that. I promise it'll look right when you have the ribbons on there.

Next, use the exact-o knife to cut slits on each side of the flag. I used my cutting mat to measure where the cuts should be. My measurements were 1/4 inch down from top and over from edge and the cut was about 3/4 inch long (this would depend on the width of your ribbon that you are threading through, also).  

 Then, thread your ribbon through each slit, connecting the flags to one another and tie a bow. When you slide the ribbon through, both ends should be coming out on top, and make sure to be consistent with which flag sits on top. My flag to the right always sat on top of the flag to the left. It seems silly to be so exact, but it really makes it more professional looking (there are totally professional paper flag buntings out there...). 

 Tie a regular bow. (I had to show the picture of the real thing, because the ribbon I was using to demonstrate how to thread the ribbon was so terrible. Please use cute ribbon!) You can also tie a bow around the outside edge just like you did on the flags that connected each other. (See below.)

Ta Da! Easy. I finished this project (drawing the letters and all) in a couple hours one evening. Now to attach it... Here I just taped it on the wall, but you could do it a number of ways. On the torn fabric garland above, I simply thread small pieces of extra ribbon through the slits at the ends of the bunting and tied them to the garland. You could also slide longer bits of ribbon through the holes on the ends and tie it on something to hang. 

Hope you like it! You could even scale down the template and make tiny flags! Ooh!

Enjoy the free template! 

Linking to the parties on my side bar and

See you soon! 

Anniversary Event Guest: Sew. Craft. Create with a Printable!

Hi! I am Heidi from sew.craft.create.

Thanks for having me over Allie!

I love making printables (I am constantly offering free printables!) and I wanted to make a cute Santa tag for my kidlets this year.

So my question is: Were you naughty or nice this year?

Be sure to hop over to my blog for another printable {here}!

b/c even the naughty deserve something nice!

------------------------------------------------------------So cute, Heidi! Thank you so much for joining in the Miss Lovie one year celebration!! I think kids would really get a kick out of those tags. And I know several adults who would, too! Ha! 
If you don't regularly go see Heidi like I do, then you should. She's always got some great ideas to share. Be sure to check out her holiday decor for this year: Naughty&Nice Printable and Martha Stewart Paper Evergreens, and some great ideas for gifts: Love Printable in 50 different languages! (I love this one), Crinkle Rocket Ship Toy for the sweet babies in your life (I love this tutorial for any crinkle toy!), and one of my favorites of Heidi's,  the Rope Bracelet.
Thanks for reading and come back tomorrow for another great guest post! 

Don't miss these fabulous giveaways!!
          
And be sure to check out the other guest posts from this week!
                               

Pre-Planned Date Night Basket: A Tutorial

 I originally saw this idea here via Pinterest.

This blogger, Shannon, planned and paid for dates in advance so she and her husband wouldn't waste time wondering what to do for their date night. They just picked an envelope and went! I loved this idea. After Matt went crazy and bought us an awesome new couch for our anniversary, I knew I had to do something special for him, too. So I made us a Date Night Basket! In the original post, Shannon actually made one date for  each month and labeled them accordingly, but I wanted ours to be more flexible, so I just labeled them 1, 2, 3, etc. and I only did 8 because I was pressed for time/that was all I could think of for the moment.

 And I, of course had to embellish the basket and envelopes a little with ruffles, hearts, garland, and embroidery.

 Each envelope had a double felt and burlap ruffle.

Then inside each date envelope, there is an info sheet describing the date along with gift cards, cash, and anything else we would need to go on the date described.

Here's Date #7, I believe.

I used the photo flyer template in Microsoft Word 2010 to create all the info sheets inside each envelope. Each one had different color schemes, descriptions, and pictures to match the date.

Want to make your own Date Night Basket??

Let's do it.

Materials Needed

Large envelopes

Basket (I got mine at target on sale!)

Microsoft Word (some sort of flyer template that allows you to insert pictures and add descriptions)

Gift cards or cash, and anything else needed to prepare for the date

Fabric for ruffles, garland, and sign on front of basket (burlap, felt, and tulle)

Mod Podge (or other glue to adhere the labels to the envelopes)

Embroidery thread and needle

Hot glue gun

2 pin backs

Sewing essentials

Plan Your Dates

If you decide to make your own Date Night Basket, remember: the dates don't have to be elaborate and can even be free! One of mine was Late Night Coffee/Catch up on DVR Date and I threw in some fun coffee flavors.

I found lots of date night ideas here (site found via pinterest again. My favorite thing to do on there is type in what I want to the Pinterest search and I find the coolest stuff!). Some of her ideas are a little too much for Matt and me, but I did use her book store date idea for Date #7 above (it even has free printables that go with it). 

 Flea Market Date. Ha. There's a huge one close to us and we've never been so...

On the date nights I planned for us to actually leave the house, I had a gift card or cash ready for however much we would be expecting to spend there. I tried to pick things that we either haven't done or don't do that often. 

Once your dates are planned, and materials are gathered, create your word docs for your info pages and print them on a color copier. I took mine to a Fed Ex Express and had them printed. 

Don't forget to print your labels, too, for the outsides of the envelopes. 

Here's a sample of the labels I created for the envelopes:

You can download your own Date Night Labels here. 

Cut and Mod Podge your labels onto the center of each envelope.

Then create a ruffle for each envelope (cut two fabric strips, both should be as long as double the width of your envelope, one thinner than the other and ruffle them at the same time) and glue on. For a more detailed post on how to make double ruffles and glue them on, see this post.

Embellish the Basket

There will be a post later about the heart and pom garland seen on this basket. For now let's make the fabric label for the basket.

Create a wide ruffle. 

 Cut two strips of fabric about 48 inches long and 5 inches wide, stack them together, and ruffle down the middle.  I used tulle and burlap

 Form the ruffle into a circle so that the center of the circle is all touching.

 Sew right sides together and set aside. 

 For the oval in the center, cut two ovals of felt and cut out your message for the center in a contrasting color of felt. To stitch the message on, I used an embroidery running stitch with 2 strands of embroidery floss.

 Once the message is stitched on, stack the ovals on top of one another, wrong sides together and do another running stitch around the outside border. If you want, you can stop here.

 I wanted my border to be a little more fun so I added in a looped running stitch. The tutorial for this says to use contrasting thread for the looped thread, but I stuck with the gold. 

(The links that provide the embroidery stitches go to a wonderful site full of embroidery tutorials! I found  the site via Mique of 30 Days Blog via Pinterest)

 Once all your stitching is complete, hot glue the oval to the center of the ruffle circle. 

Trim any fabric that sticks out too far and you're done!

 I wanted to attach the fabric label to the basket without ruining the basket in case I ever wanted to reuse the basket for something else. I figured out that if I stuck a pin in through the weaves it would stay, so...

I hot glued two pin backs onto the wrong side of the fabric label in the places I knew they would need to go in order for the label to be centered an in the right place.

 Hang it on the basket (don't worry about clasping the pins- they'll stay) and you're done!

If you make little garlands like I did, you can pin them to the fabric lining of the basket just inside the rim of the basket in the front. By doing it this way, you can detach it anytime you want to use the basket for something else.

 Give it to your love and watch him be super surprised. I love this idea, too, because once the dates are all done, you can always fill the envelopes again! 

And even though I made this for my love for our Anniversary, how much fun would this be as a Christmas present?! Or birthday?! 

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Thanks for reading!

Linking to the parties (including here and here and here) on my sidebar!