made: teacher gifts

Showing posts with label teacher gifts. Show all posts

Summer vacation and End of Year Teacher Gift {idea}

Life is keeping me busy...as in, barely staying afloat. I'm embarrassed to see how long it's been since I've posted anything (meanwhile I pay money to keep this blog up) so I really do intend on being better about sharing and writing. So much happens every day!

My oldest children are on Summer Vacation!

I have a couple things that I'm trying and figure other moms might appreciate...but before I get to that, I wanted to share my end of year gift:

As the homeroom mom, I pulled together a questionnaire about the teacher that ended up being REALLY sweet. I've included my son's responses (he does not share his mother's love of penmanship, but you get the idea...and I'm so impressed that he's using THREE colors in his picture!)

I really struggled with how to best contain all 24 letters for the teacher. I wasn't sure if this was a keepsake she'd want to hold on to forever, but I also wanted it to be contained and nicely presented. I only had a limited time to pull it together (so probably would've pulled together a Shutterfly book if I had more time!) This fun clip is from the stamping aisle in Hobby Lobby.

I was able to purchase copies of Mo Willems "The Thank You Book" for both my Pre-K son + my 1st grade son's teachers. This book is the 25th (and final) Elephant and Piggy book--and I felt like for these ages, it is a perfect book to gift teacher's for their classroom library.

I used my silhouette machine to create a sticker to put inside the book, and as part of the wrapping.

The stickers are freebies from thankorama.com.

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Teacher Christmas Ornament {DIY}

This year as we decorated our tree, I loved opening the ornaments from my former students. I haven't taught in over 7 years, so it was fun imagining the cute little kindergarteners I remember being middle schoolers. I decided I wanted to give Callum's teacher an ornament. I wasn't sure exactly if I would pick up a Hallmark Ornament or make something...

We ended up with this:

It started from this:

I asked Callum to draw a picture of him and his teacher. He ended up drawing this adorable stick drawing of him holding hands. {SO SWEET!}

To make this into an actual ornament, I scanned the image and uploaded the image into the Silhouette software. I used the "trace" option and cut the image out of black vinyl. He wrote his name with extra letters...so I removed the extras and put it all on one line and added his name onto the back of the ornament. Also, my son commented that his teacher's hair wasn't right, I guess I should have "welded" the image for that section because the hair didn't "trace" well. I recut some black to add some hair.

I love love love this + I think his teacher did too!

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Teacher Gift {DIY}

One of my Christmas projects this year was putting together something special for my son's pre-k teacher. My son completely adores his teacher, and I love that he loves school! He is asking every day if he goes back TODAY...

For this gift, I used the "etching" vinyl personalized with her name on a medium size glass jar from WalMart.

I completely packed the jar with a ton of items that she could use at home or at school. Nice soap, lotion, nail polish, nail file, gloves, EOS chapstick, socks, gloves that my son picked out, plus I made her an infinity scarf which I will share with you (visible behind her name in the top picture) and an ornament made by Callum (stay tuned) with a note telling her how much we appreciate her!

Two wrap, I cut a large rectangle of cellophane, with some fun green dot tissue paper on the inside. Just lift the corners and tie the top...so easy. I used our Christmas {post} card as a label.

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First Day of {Pre} School (and a quick teacher gift) {DIY}

School started today. Yikes. It's hard to believe...

Starting last year, I edited a back to school picture to include some information...nothing too fancy, but it's nice to have a little reminder and to compare from year to year. This year I somehow edited the picture into a strange size, so I'm not sure it will print easily...and I might have to remake it.

This guy is getting so big, so fast!

I think the day went well. My son was excited + reported that he had a good day. No one cried. He had a cupcake because it was some one's birthday in his class. He can't remember her name....or anyone elses name. Oh well. He told me he painted. I was please to find a painting in his "pack pack."

Here are a few pictures from our little photo session:

Oddly enough, the "pack pack" was what helped him decide he WANTED to go back to school. It came in the mail last Friday and he asked every day if it was school yet...who knew!?

Of course enjoying a pb+j for lunch...

Brothers <3 p="">

Thankfully, my husband was able to come home at lunch and see our big buy off...and he offered to snap a shot with me in it!! {that rarely ever happens!}

Here he is as we dropped him off...someday there will be grass...now there is just caution tape and lots of dirt!

Walking in:

Waiting his turn to hand his teacher a back to school gift:

And here is what I made for the back to school gift:

I purchased a water bottle on sale at Old Navy (of all places...) I added a banner {KG Flavor and Frames font} and the teacher's initial {century gothic} using outdoor vinyl cut with my Silhouette. I used an adorable printable I found on pinterest, and printed off on card stock. About an hour before school, I ran to Walmart and picked up a variety of single serve drink mixes (the little packets that you just add water) and included them inside of the cup. Really, really easy.

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End of Year Teacher Gifts {DIY}

The end of the school year was a little crazy (and early) at my house because of the move. Both of my children attended a fabulous pre-school (Parent's Place, for those of you in the Morgantown WV area looking for a pre-school) plus received some extra therapy due to developmental delays (early intervention, both have benefited from services!!) so it only seemed right to give something special to the teachers + therapists we saw on a regular basis. I decided to go with a relaxing summer theme:

personalized beach bag (purchased as a 3 pack from Walmart)
personalized (embroidered by me) beach towel (purchased at Target)
magazine (ladies home journal)
gift card (from barnes + noble, my intent is so they could buy a fun summer book)
sunscreen + bubbles (although I think I must have gotten ahead of myself and ended up forgetting to put them inside the first two bags I had given, oops!)

All in all the embroidery took the most time, just because I made so many towels, etc. I also created a stencil using my Silhouette machine and then painted the initials on the bags using fabric paint. Even with the gift cards and items to put in the bag, I felt these were extremely reasonable and fun, unique teacher gifts.

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Teacher's Gift {Mini-Tutorial}

School is about to start (yikes!) although I made these as end of year teacher gifts, these would also be a nice gift to start off the school year....easy & quick to make, you can't beat that:

Using some craft paper, mod podge, and clipboards, I created these gift's for my son's teachers last year:

First I traced the outside of the clipboard and carefully trimmed and also trimmed around the metal bracket. I added a contrasting stripe, and monogram of the teacher's name (on both sides).

I carefully covered both sides with a coat of mod podge. (Allowing each side to dry thorougly before beginning the second side.)

I added some pieces of ribbon, just to spice things up:

Plus, I scanned a piece of the coordinating scrapbook paper, added it to a blank page across the long side of the page, added the teacher's name, printed, and trimmed the corners using scrapbooking tools.

Here is the second one:

And here it is wrapped up in some cellophane paper & ribbon.

I'm linking at Someday Crafts & The NY Melrose Family.

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Teacher Thank You Gifts

My son has been receiving early intervention speech therapy for most of the last year. Two different practitioners, and a case manager come into our home to work with the "wordless wonder." {Who now has quite a few words, I must say!} They are fantastic. The early intervention program where I live ends at 3 years, and in a few weeks my son will start going to the local school for speech. {He really IS growing up!}

I had to do something special for them...but I didn't want something TOO "teacher-ish. I ended up coming across this adorable idea:

{via Pinterest, via TipJunkie, via Giggles Galore}

I decided to make my own version. I simply picked up 3 clay pots & some yellow paint at Walmart. I had chalkboard paint already.

I tried a few different things for the numbering-including using my Silhouette with black vinyl. Honestly, that just wasn't my favorite and actually peeled off some of the yellow paint {gah!} I ended up printing off a version of the numbers onto white computer paper, covering the paper with wax paper, then I used black puff paint (you know the kind from 1985!) to trace over the computer paper. I let the puff paint dry and peeled it off, and stuck it on the pot (I did use a pencil to trace the distance of the dashes...so each one is slightly different. I added a layer of Mod Podge over the top "ruler" portion to make sure none of the numbers/dashes would peel off.

I love the way it turned out.

I "primed" the chalkboard paint (simply by coloring over the entire chalk section of the pot with some chalk and then wiping it all off!) Then wrote the message "thanks for helping me grow."

I also made personalized cards: I used some fabric that I had on hand and printed off "Thank You" on a handwriting creator (I found it on google, I don't know which I used) and then I finished it off with some blue rickrack. Easy & simple....and cute, if I say so myself!