"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks"

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" - remember that childhood rhyme? My kids were so ready for summer vacation 2 months ago! HaHaHa

Of course, end of the year meant I needed to make thank you gifts for the teachers.Both teachers worked so hard all year and I know they were probably ready for summer vacation two weeks after school started - LOL!

So for both of the teachers, I created a gift set that consisted of: the following items: altered full-size clipboard, matching altered half notebook with pen, a bouquet of flowers, and can't forget for a little R&R...body wash that comes with a body sponge which was bought at the Dollar Store too. If you have been following my blog or have seen my gallery, you will notice that I love altering clipboards and composition notebooks. They are always a great "go to" gift.

Gift Set #1 went to my daughter's kindergarten teacher...My daughter's kindergarten teacher always admired anything crafty simply because she is a scrapbooker herself. So this was my chance to make something special for her. She had been teaching for many years and my daughter loved being in her class. She had several misfits in her class, including my daughter, but she kept chugging.

Instead of putting everything in a decorative paper bag, I bought these cute plastic containers at the Dollar Store to put all of the gifts into. It costs the same as a paper bag but I wanted to find a more practical container so that the teachers could re-purpose it for something else.

One of Jen del Muro's blog posts had given me a great idea to make these beautiful bouquet of flowers made out of tissue paper with tulle in the middle. She found this idea on Pinterest - a new website every crafter is raving about. I know I need to jump on the bandwagon already. Here is the tutorial I used for the flowers: Bouquet of Flowers


I started to make all of these flowers with different color combos. Here is a sampling of what the flowers look like...

It depends on the size rectangle you use so after testing the size on one, I created a much smaller version so it would fit better in the vase. In the pic below, you can see my first one made with yellow and white tissue paper and then my revised much smaller version on the left.

Here is the bouquet all completed. I used a glue gun and BBQ sticks to hold the flowers in place. I cut the sticks to the appropriate size. then placed them in the vase.

Here is a close-up of the flowers. I added a package of unsharpened pencils in the middle of the flowers to liven it up a bit. Plus teachers always need pencils in their classrooms.

I converted these ceramic containers to use as a vase. It used to contain dry mustard. I scored big during a community wide garage sale and bought 2 boxes of these babies. Hubby wasn't very pleased when he saw the boxes in the trunk - oooppppsss!!! I finally found the nerve to use the rub-ons I had been hoarding from SU that I bought a long time ago. Rub-ons can be temperamental. You have to make sure you rub hard and take off the wax paper it was originally stuck very slowly or you completely mess up the rub-on (ask me how I know that *sigh*). You live and learn, right?

Here are the rest of the pieces of the gift set. The first one is the clipboard and notebook gift set.

It is hard to tell, but I added Maya Road alpha rub-ons on the bottom part of the clipboard. I had this one already made from Christmas - it just needed some finishing touches.

For the notebook, I decided to leave it as is so that I wasn't distracting from the design on the paper. I created a matching pen for it too. When I gave the gift to my daughter's teacher, she said this was her favorite kind of pen. So score on that one too! I wish I would've had time to make a beaded pen instead.

This is just a picture of the body wash and body sponge I added to the gift set. I bought the body wash, body sponge from the Dollar store as well.

Gift set #2 went to my son's 1st grade teacher...She is fairly new teacher - this is her 4th year teaching. She is one of the most awesome teachers I have ever met. She is so energetic, enthusiastic, and so genuine with the kids. My son loved being in her class. My husband and I love the fact that she was so great at communication. I wish I had a teacher like her when I was younger.

I created a slightly different color combo for this bouquet to match the rub-on I put on the vase.

When I started altering clipboards, I used to tie different colored ribbons by the metal clamp, but browsing through the SCS gallery had inspired me to experiment with different kinds of medium. For this one I used one of my flower dies, red felt and a red button. For a more 3D effect, I cut out 2 each of 3 size flowers. To put the flower together, I gathered all of the pieces the way I wanted it to look, then stitched a red button with matching thread. Then to make more stable, I cut a square piece of cardstock and glued it to the back of the flower. Then I cut a few pieces of 3 dimensional double stick tape to the back so that it is not completely flat on the metal clamp. I think it turned out so cute! Don'tcha think???

 

Isn't that such a cute owl? It's hard to see, but it says "hoot" underneath the owl.

Before ya'll go, stay tuned for a couple of announcements in July!!!

Thanks for stopping by!