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.

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.