Today was the first day of school. But a few days ago was “Meet the Teacher” day. I made these gifties for the girls’ new teachers.

I started with a cleaned-up hot chocolate can, covered it with paper and embellished it. I added some decorated pens & pencils. Since I sharpened the pencils (for immediate use), I wanted to protect the points in the can. Thankfully the interior circle of the can was a perfect fit for a Spellbinder die – so a quick die cut of craft foam and the inside is soft.

In addition to pens & pencils, I added a skinny note pad and a card. The card is a wacky size so it would fit in the can.

The final bit in the can is a questionnaire where I ask the teacher stuff like ‘what is your favorite color’, and ‘do you like apples’. I’ll use the information when making other gifts throughout the year. If you are interested, you can download the questionnaire (PDF).

As for supplies, the stamps are all PTI (except the frame on the card – that is MFT). The DSP is all retired SU stuff. If you want to know something specific, don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks for stopping by!

So last week my blog was pretty quiet. The reason was I was working on teacher gifts – the ones I needed to get into the mail to send back to our old school….before school got out for the year!

In that school my girls switched classes for different subjects, so there were many teachers. For one group I did note cubes with matching pens. For the other set I did acrylic sticky-note holders with matching pens. I kept it simple and used the same design for all of them.

Then for the card that accompanied the gifts, I continued the same design. I did break out the felt to create the flowers and then used the vine stamp from Background Basics for the leaves (because at some point I lost the leaf stamp that I was using, but PTI, being an awesome company, is replacing that image – for just the cost of a stamp!).

This photo frame is for a friend back in Hawaii who recently had a baby. Since this was not her first child, I figured she probably wouldn’t need clothing. I decided a photo frame would be a great gift.

I started with a wood frame – something I’ve had in my stash for a long time, but I’m pretty sure I got it at Michael’s or a similar shop. It was plain wood. I painted the frame front and sides white. Then I covered the front with paper (some old KI Memories paper). You can’t tell it in the photo but the pattern paper has sheen to it.

Next I added a bit of ribbon. Then I finished it with the chipboard letters and felt flower accent. The insert to the frame had a generic advertisey look to it, so I painted that white and added a protective layer (with a decoupage-like glue).

Every gift needs a card, right? I made this one to match the frame.

I used the same supplies. This gift is for many reasons, so I left a greeting off the front and wrote everything inside. Since the gift is a wood frame, I used a wood embossing plate to texture the card’s background. The flowers on the frame are felt and have their own texture. The flowers on the card are paper and felt a bit flat. I added some white sponging to the centers, just enough to peek out behind the top layers.

Thanks for taking a peek!

I know this isn’t a card, but don’t be too shocked. I’m trying to get ahead on my assignments.

This altered tin will be made at Mom’s October 3D camp. This is a DVD-type tin with a few 3×3 cards. It would make a great gift that could be put together relatively quickly.

I went pretty simple with the tin relying on the pattern paper for interest. The cards are so tiny I found it hard to design. Again I kept them very simple.

To make the flower for the tin’s belly band, I punched 2 flowers from the DSP using the Extra Large Flower punch. The bottom one I left as is; the top one I cut into it to make petals and folded them a bit to give some dimension.

Yep, I put the PRO in procrastinator! I’ve been thinking about teacher gifts since school started. But when did I actually start working on them? The night before the last day of Teacher Appreciation week (thanks to Furlough Friday, no school on Friday and so one day less to procrastinate). *sigh* This year I made gifts for 4 teachers. And thankfully all of them are wonderful teachers so I did want to make the gifts.

I made each teacher a set of 6 notecards. Because of the late hour I made all of the cards the same. Though, honestly, if I had thought it out I would not have designed a card that would result in 576 total impressions!

Next up I made covered notepads. I don’t have a lot of stock in my SU stash (because my stock is in Purcellville – hi mom! lol), so I pulled out my PTI Poppy cardstock. I was in luck I had 8 pieces left (I only needed 4)! Plenty to make these covers. I carefully cut the first one and lucky me made it perfectly the first time (never happens). But don’t worry, I made up for it by cutting the next 3 all at the same time – 1″ short!!! Thankfully I had those extra sheets – but now Poppy cardstock is on my next purchase list! I’m not overly happy with these notepads but that is because I designed as I went.

Finally I created these paper clip bookmarks. I was so happy I had dies that would work to do this, that I forgot the PTI dies are not symmetrical, so I wasted quite a few minutes lining up my pile of cut pieces to the die so I could mark them for easier stamping and assembly. Even still they didn’t line up nice. One day I’ll figure out how to do that! Or maybe PTI will see the error of their way and make them symmetrical (but I doubt it, lol). I do like them – but then I love bookmarks!

And no gift is complete without chocolate. I added a little box of macadamia nuts to each package which was simply stacked and tied with a piece of grosgrain. My kids made a thank you card that accompanied the gifts.

ETA: I should have mentioned this, as I think it is a good tip I buy my kids’ shoes at discount places. The shoes are held together with little elastic strings. I keep those strings because elastic can be handy in crafting. I used those strings to hold the pens onto the notebooks!

Thanks for taking a peek!

This notebook and candle have been on my desk for-evah! They will be finding a new home this week (fulfilling a very old promise).

What finally got me to finish the ensemble was a challenge. I stumbled upon a challenge blog – 365 Cards – and the current challenge was to use stuff from your stash (Day306). All the pattern paper and punch-outs (flowers, letters, tags) come from a Deja View package that I’ve had for awhile. Very cool how well the greens in the paper work with the notebook.

Another challenge I found was at sketch at Our Creative Corner (SASSC46). What a fun sketch – lots of layers one of which is at a jaunty angle.

I needed a box to put in a little hair chopstick (I have no idea what you call those things). I started with a Nugget box template I found on SCS and modified it to the dimensions I needed. I learned a good lesson – always make a prototype before using your precious paper! There isn’t much to this box, but it serves its purpose well. I used an old SU scrapping kit for paper and die-cuts. I did decide that I must buy some wide white grosgrain!

This box was created to hold an ornament. I found it by searching on SCS, but here is a link to the PDF Template from Scor-Pal. I am *in love* with this box. I’m not sure what I would do if I needed a larger box as this uses the whole sheet of 12×12, but it is 3in sq, so it fits most things.

Thankfully my mom just shared some of the flocked paper with me – it was a perfect paper to use for this box. Decorating the top was a bit nerve-wracking though!

I’ve never made Ribbon Flowers before, and it was a PAIN, but they are so cute! The ribbon and buttons are PTI. Thankfully the Poppy color works with the SU Red when it comes to embellishments. The leaves are an SU die-cut that I love! I debated about decorating the wide sides, but I decided not to.

Thanks for visiting!

Before I left Virginia, I sent a little care-package to a friend. The package contained (starting in the back row, moving clockwise) lip balm, book store gift card, lotion, tea bags, chocolate bar, and more chocolate (in the tin).

I had fun creating all the little holders. The lip balm holder was made by following this template, but I would suggest using the slit punch to make the top and bottom ledges – sorry I couldn’t find a template, just found them in the SCS gallery (wish I had found them before I tried to make the other, lol). The tea bag holder was made by following this template (scroll to the end of the post) that I found at the Scrap Bitz blog.

This is the first ensemble that I’ve put together where I decorated everything. I chose to use snowflake paper from the old Stampin’Up! Holiday Thyme DSP pack. I think I’ve always shied away from doing coordinated gifts because I was afraid it would use all my paper. ALL of these were done with 1 piece of 12×12 DSP and a couple pieces of 8.5 x11 cardstock.

Today’s post is another Lunch Box gift ensemble for a teacher back home. Mrs. A is a wonderful teacher (first grade) and a wonderful person. Because she is such a star, I went with the ‘star’ theme. She also loves rainbows (no wonder I like her so much ). I didn’t have the paper I wanted to use, so it took me a few days to mourn that and move on. I ended up choosing a favorite paper of mine from Stampin’Up! – Cutie Pie – it is so bright and cheery…just makes me smile! I don’t have the new teacher set from PTI yet, so the sentiment for the box was done on the computer and cut out using a Spellbinder’s Label 2 die. The star stamps are from Verve and they fit wonderfully in the punches from SU!

For this gift ensemble I even got the cards to match, hee hee. I wanted the cards to be mailable in case she didn’t want to just use them for school, so I did a very simple design with no ribbon knots. Did I mention the Verve stars fit into the SU punches? {I love that!} To do the sentiment I used a couple different PTI sets to get just the words I wanted – and since they are clear stamps, lining it all up was a breeze.

Finally, the gifties for inside the lunch box. I did a acrylic Post-it Note holder and a bag of cookies (her favorite). I used the same paper so it would match the lunch box. Putting them together is pretty straight forward.

I normally don’t do big Christmas gifts for teachers, I prefer to spoil them during Teacher Appreciation week. But this year I knew we wouldn’t be around during that time and we had such awesome teachers that I *had* to do something at Christmas time. We miss them something bad right now! *sniff*

On to the projects. I’ll post in two pieces – some today, some tomorrow. First up is Mrs. B (third grade). She likes school/office stuff, so I made an altered Lunch Box using some old Stampin’Up! Notations paper. I too love office stuff, so making this box was pure fun for me As soon as I saw the paper, I knew I had to use the ‘ruler’ part around the center. The ticket (from the Stamp of Authority set) was added because tickets are a big deal in Mrs. B’s class – you earn them and then can use them for fun stuff – like sitting at the teacher’s desk!

Inside the lunchbox I included a matching post-it note holder, made from an acrylic frame, and a matching beaded pen. Of course for the pen I used the “number” paper….forgetting that once you bead it you can’t read the numbers any more…oh well! I also created a tea-bag book. For the tea-bag book, I used a template by CookieStamper that I found on SCS. The tea cup is from a BlockHead Stamps set.

Finally, I also included a set of note cards. I knew I wanted to use the doggie image – my daughter says Mrs. B. loves her dog. My attempt to make the cards (sorta) match the rest of the ensemble, I added the notepaper background. The dog is colored with Stampin’Up! markers, if you work fast enough, you can get it done without the marker lines.