Teacher's Gifts

I always struggle with what gifts to get teachers at the end of the school year. I see so many cute 'survival kits' and clipboards, etc., but I always think that if a teacher has been teaching long enough, they must have a million of those. I always apply the 'what would I like to get' rule to gifts that I buy, and I try to pick things that anyone would like to get. I finally came up with three of my favorite things; icecream (in the form of a Dairy Queen gift card), Grahams chocolates (I've tried a lot of chocolate in my 40 years and Grahams absolutely beats all others), and a candle (warm apple pie scent to go with my apple theme).

The only non-perishable item that I added to this was a pen that each of my children helped make using the micro-bead technique by Sarah Moore on SCS. It fit right in with my theme, and I figure that all women can use a cute pen for their purse! I made a small charm using Shrink Plastic, the apple stamp from Tart and Tangy, Real Red Craft Ink, Black Gingham ribbon, 1 1/4" Circle Punch, 1/8" circle Punch, and a jump ring. Instead of using the Avery label with images stamped on it like the instructions show, I used a piece of Summer Picnic DSP. To get the DSP to stick to the pen I just covered it in SNAIL and it worked really well. The apples on the paper didn't show up very well once they were covered in beads, but the overall look was still pretty cute. My kids loved rolling the pens in the beads! I couldn't find the RSVP Pens at my local store (and with gas prices the way that they are I certainly wasn't going to drive around looking for them!), so I found these Pilot pens that worked just as well. My daughter liked the one that she made so much that she wanted to keep hers, but because she loved her teacher, she was willing to give it up.

The basket and candle were a great purchase from Wal-Mart, and the Polka Dot Satin Ribbon was a 40% off deal from JoAnn's. I used sticky strip in three different places to adhere the ribbon because I wanted the teachers to be able to remove the ribbon in order to reuse the basket. The band on the candle was made with the Summer Picnic DSP, and of course the cutie apple was from the Tart and Tangy SU! stamp set from the Occasions Mini Catalog. Can I just say how much I LOVE this stamp set? I can't remember the last time I used a stamp set as much as I've used this one. I did Mother's Day gifts with it, thank you notes, planned a stamp camp with it......and the list goes on!

The card was a version of one I made for a Retirement stamp camp last year, and I just replaced the stamp set (a few of you may remember it, it was Black and Olive, and there were flowers stamped from the 'In Full Bloom' set). Easy Peasey!

I'm pretty excited about the way everything turned out....especially since I procrastinated until the point where I seriously considered a handmade card with a gift card. My kids had such great teachers this year that they deserved the extra effort.