End of the Year Teacher Gift

  I LOVE reading blogs! It really is an addiction. There's an AWESOME blog called Come Together Kids, and she had a wonderful guest post from another blog I read, Sun Scholars, about a gift her kids made for their teachers. Of course I had to try it! It was so easy and incredibly cute! We made 6 of them in an afternoon (yes we really do have that many teachers for 2 kids in elementary). Here is what we made:

A even put an exclamation point at the end - had to stitch that!

Can you tell that A loves to draw and Z is a minimalist?

We did stitch their handwriting as suggested in the original blog post. I forgot to heat set the marker before washing - heat set the marker. Though I stitched in pencil color, I realized that the color is just not representative of my kids and I should have done a bright color. I also learned to exaggerate the lines on the bags (make them huge) so that the kids will write big. It was hard to stitch their actual size so we pulled out the white eraser (pink will discolor the fabric) and tried again. I did like the color of the paper lines after washing the bags. It was more the faded look and resembled paper better. Over all it was a fun project and we loved doing it!

Z LOVED hand stitching! He would sit in the rocker and rock while stitching. He would just chat and chat and chat. I enjoyed the time with my boy. He's growing up so fast and needing me less and less and less.

A was in her element. A can of sharpies and pile of fabric bags to draw on. She is just like me - LOVES Sharpies! I have found a couple unopened packages in my desk. Can't wait to use them next school year!

There was one more little project I finished that weekend. Gifts for my NJHS officers. Every year I give my officers a gift. Last year they were a serious group so I gave them silly straw glasses to remind them to have fun! This group was just amazing, and it was so hard to let them go. I made them clip boards. I know you're thinking "Clip boards for 8th graders?". They LOVED them! Here's what I did. I painted one side with chalk board paint and glued Dr. Seuss paper on the other side. NJHS colors are blue and gold so I tied blue and yellow ribbon on the blip. Then I tied blue and yellow ribbon on bull clips. I put on clip on each side set apart. They can clip photos to the boards! Then they can write little notes in chalk around the photos. They did it instantly! I also gave them some command strips in case they preferred to hang the boards on their walls. I even made one for me :)