End of the Year Teacher Gift - Personalized Beach Bags

This was last year's end of the year teacher gift for my kids teachers. I used my Silhouette machine to make iron on letters for their names to make personalized Beach Bags. We filled the bags with a wet/dry bag, sunglasses, lotion and bottles of water with drink mixes. I thought this was a fun end of the year gift to give them to help them get ready for summer.

DIY Silhouette Teacher T-Shirts

This is another fun project to do with your silhouette machine, but using heat transfer vinyl instead.

I bought both of the images from the silhouette design store. I know that you can find your own images to use in the silhouette software but I have found that sometimes trying to use something that has mostly a font can be really putsy and takes more time than what it cost to buy the image.

When I bought these images last week there were almost a dozen other images you got free with purchase so I got one free image with each one. If you are looking at it today it might be worth your while to see if those are still there. And in case you didn't know the silhouette design store offers a new image that is free every week. If I remember I tried to log in and get that image in case I want to use it in the future. It's just get stored and my digital silhouette Library.

These were back-to-school gifts that the kids helped make. I admit I did All of the cutting and design work but the kids had to do the ironing. I thought these would be something fun and different that their teachers might not have.

After School Snack Wine Glass - Teacher Gift

So, these are #3 & #4 that I made. I used my Silhouette machine to create the vinyl to put these letters on wine glasses. I had purchased 2 different fonts from the Silhouette Design Store to do the words and modeled it off of a similar craft I found on pinterest. I originally made 2 of them to give to each of my children's main grade teachers during teacher appreciation week in May, but then was commissioned by one of those teachers to make 2 more for a couple of teachers that were retiring. I thought they all turned out really cute.

Easy Vinyl Lettered Cups for Teachers and Bus Driver

It is teacher appreciation week so giving you an idea of something you can easily make to give to a teacher, a coach, or a bus driver. I made mine using the silhouette machine but if you don't have one of those machines to cut out vinyl letters you can just bye your own vinyl stickers and put on. We filled our drink cups with drink mixes as well.

Teacher Appreciation Gift Idea #2: "Thanks for Helping Me Grow" Hand Print Craft

This is one that my kindergarten son made for his teacher. It's a perfect for the younger child like preschool and kindergarten.

It's a simple hand print craft and he loved painting it for his teacher. They only stay little for so long, so let them finger paint and get those hand prints while they are still little.

Thanks for Helping Me Grow!

Teacher Appreciation: It's Been a SWEET Year

You will remember seeing this printable when I told you how easy it was to make labeled Candy dishes for teachers last week. I had my daughter pass out these cards with that gift, as well as these truffles to all her individual subject teachers (phy. ed, technology, music, art and High Potential Program).

This year I have been all about the easy gifts. I just spent my time making up printables and printing them out. In other years we spent more time making the gifts. Some years you just need to prioritize what you want to do, and this year I just didn't have the time for lots of homemade gifts.

We gave this for teacher appreciation week, but this would make a great end of the year gift too!

Thrifty Teacher Appreciation Gift - Thanks for Helping Me Polish My Skills

My daughter this gift was a super fun one to give to her teacher. For this one I had her hand write a note that said "Thank You for Helping Me POLISH My Skills" and wrapped up this fun nail polish set that includes 2 colors.

We also included a letter, which I will be sharing later in the month with you.

This is a really inexpensive gift and if you are like me and giving teachers multiple gifts over the week, the cost of the gifts can add up. Plus this one is super easy and you can quickly get it ready to give.

Easy to Make Candy Dish plus a Review of Kitchen Supreme Liquid Chalk Markers

These Kitchen Supreme Liquid Chalk Markers are very easy to use. We just got these in the mail today and I just love that they some with a set of labels to use. I got these for free to do a review of them and was very pleased with this review came up because I had already bought these glass canisters and had planned to to chalkboard paint on them with chalk, but this was SO MUCH EASIER! The pictures I included are of the Candy Dishes my kids made for their teachers for Teacher Appreciation gifts.

There on instructions on each marker on how to get them started, which basically is just pressing the felt tip (a couple extras of those are included) for a bit then shaking until the paint absorbs in to the tip. You need to do them with each one with probably takes less than 10 minutes to do the first time. I had the kids write on the label when it was flat and then we peeled it from the paper and stuck it on the glass canisters.

The markers so say they can be used on glass and white boards or any non-porous surface, so I can't wait to try these out on other surfaces. They go on liquid and you should make sure you wait until they dry before handling over the chalk. The chalk will dry and doesn't rub off, but you can easily wash it off with water. They are so easy to use that both my preschooler and third grader used them on their own.

My other plan was to tape and area and use blackboard paint, then write on it with chalk. Both are much more messy and time consuming than this. This only took a minute to make a thoughtful gift!

Buy Kitchen Supreme Liquid Chalk Markers on Amazon!!!

We gave the teachers these DIY candy dishes along with a printable card I made. Feel free to use it too!

I was sent the above product for free. No monetary compensation was received. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#193 Make Fabric Bookmarks with Leftover Fabric

This project idea came from Skip to My Lou. I thought it was a great idea as a Teacher Appreciation Gift to go along with a new book (& some homemade Cinnamon Apple Raisin Bread.) I used some leftover fabric from making my daughter's Easter dress to make these.

The first thing that I did differently was that I did not use iron-on fusing, simply because I didn't have any and didn't want to run to the store just to buy that, so I came up with a different solution and that was to use cardboard.

I glued two pieces of cardboard (from a food box, so not too thick) with the cardboard "color" inside facing out, so that the colored print side would not show through the fabric.

The rest of the instructions were the same as on Skip to My Lou. So, please check those out because she did a great job explaining each step (I totally believe in not reinventing the wheel and giving credit where it is due.)

I made the rosettes the same way I did for the headband. I think next time I might try out the tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets that Skip to My Lou referenced.
You can see the book choices my daughter made for her teacher based on some things she knows about her teachers. We went to a local bookstore and she made her choices while I chased around her little brother picking up books he pulled off the shelves.

She also made them each a card and it blew me away that she designed her card to go with the theme of the book. One card was all pictures of flowers and plants and the other one was all different kinds of transportation to take on vacation and a drawing of the Earth. Just amazed me that my (almost) 5 year old thought about doing that all on her own.

BTW - So glad I made some bread for us too because I already ate some tonight and it is fantastic! Really hope the teachers like it.

#114-#116 Stationary Crafts

We have a little bit of everything with this project that my daughter & I worked on. We created these as Christmas presents for the staff in her preschool classroom.

Notebook: This is a composition notebook (bought on sale during back to school sales). It is important to buy something that you can wrap the fabric around in one piece. We used fabric that was all leftover from other project (chair upholstery, xmas stocking, & window swag) and stringed pearly beads (which were leftover as well). We simply applied glue to the front & back of the notebook and then applied the fabric. After it was dry, the fabric was trimmed to make clean edges. The beads were then applied with hot glue.

Pen Holder: We started out with a tin can, which we thorough cleaned. Then we applied spray adhesive to the fabric (same fabric to make a matching set) and rolled the can over the fabric, flush with the bottom edge, then folded the top edge to the inside of the can (about an inch). Then with hot glue we applied ribbon, beads & lace that we were leftover from other projects.

Flower Pens: This we started out with some pens that were bought during the back to school sales. We then used some reused flowers that we found at a rummage sale and bought some green floral tape. After we removed the end of the pen, we put a flower in the end, then attached the leaves with floral tape, which we extended down the pen to make it look like a stem.

This was a fun project to do with my daughter. I operated the hot glue gun, spray adhesive, scissors & floral tape. She applied the craft glue, applied trim & flowers to hot glue. Together we wrapped the cans & notebooks in fabric.

She also did the stamping on card stock to make little cards to go with her gifts. I let her pick out among all the stamps we had to make her cards. I have not bought any new stamps in several years, they are just ones I accumulated over a few years of projects. So, it was a great way to continue using what we have.