Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school for my kids.  Can't believe how fast this year flew by...wish I could slow time down just a bit.  My oldest is finishing 8th grade today...onto high school next year...WOW!

I wanted to share the gifts we made for the teachers of my two younger children.  There are a ton of ideas on pinterest!   I copied borrowed a couple of them from other bloggers.  Hey, that's why they are out there right...for us to find inspiration from to create our own...or just plain 'ol copy them! ;)

Anyway, here are the gifts we did this year.  This one I put together for the teacher's aides.  The original can be found here with a free printable download for the flags.  I bought the cups at TJ Maxx, added lemonade packets and the flag...perfectly cute, simple & inexpensive gift idea.

At the last minute I found out that the student teacher who has worked in my daughters class from time to time was going to be at their class party.  Back to pinterest for something quick!  Found these cute poems here.  Filled a bag with mints I already had at home, printed the poem & added cute scrapbook paper & ribbon.




As a room parent I collected contributions for a class gift for the teacher.  We got her a Visa gift card so that she could use it wherever she wanted.  But I was searching for a creative presentation for the ordinary gift card.  TipJunkie is an awesome source for creative ideas.  Totally copied this one.  I printed out the tag & used a leaf punch I had bought for my sisters wedding. Wrapped the gift card in scrapbook paper & tied it all together with jute twine.  Isn't it adorable?!  I just love this one!!

Although the class gift was given to the teacher I wanted to give her a little something from my daughter.   This is what I came up with...

Again pinterest had some great inspiration but I added my own twist by spray painting the flower pots with chalkboard paint.  That way they can reuse the pots...maybe even for herbs & label them.   I made one for my son's teacher as well.  The kids added their teacher's names to the pots.

Happy Last Day of School!!!!



 

My sisters wedding

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  A while ago I shared the pictures from the baby shower I gave my sister.  You can see that post here.  Tonight I thought I'd share some of the details from my sister's wedding.  She got married 2 years ago.  But that was the first time I tested my creative abilities and handmade favor tags, place cards, menu cards and wedding programs for her wedding.  I found lots of inspiration through the www! 

She got married in October & decided to go with a rustic fall theme.  The favors were caramel apples...yummy!!!  These are the favor tags I made..."a sweet happily ever after"!  This is the picture I took and emailed her so she could decide which color paper. 

She choose the middle one.  I simply printed it out using microsoft word & used a paper punch in the shape of a leaf.  We choose brown raffia to tie the tags onto the apples.

The wedding programs were also handmade.  Again, I printed them at home and attached the two page program to textured brown scrapbook paper.  The top page can be seen below.  The second page included all the details of their wedding ceremony.  I just tied it all together with raffia & a cute paper leaf that I made with another paper punch. 

 

In keeping with the theme...the menu cards were a smaller version of the wedding programs.

The place cards were handmade as well.  We decided to make a "family tree" to hang the family place cards from the tree.   The place cards were printed with a simple picture of a tree next to the names & table #.

 Although I don't have a picture the friend place cards were tent cards that we set up around the family tree on the table. 

 

I made table number cards to match the place cards.  We found these cute little brown metal holders at Michaels. 

 

I found these adorable wooden buckets again...at Michaels.  I emailed my sister this picture to see if she liked of the idea of using these to hold flowers on the end of the pews in the church.  I tried to remove the labels but after making a mess of the first one decided to just turn it around so you couldn't see the label. 

The florist added the flowers the morning of the wedding...so cute!

My sister used lanterns and small bouquets of flowers as centerpieces.

 Each table had a different lantern...it was so simple yet elegant.

Her wedding was amazing!  I was so glad to be a part of the planning. I had such fun creating some of the little details & helping pull it all together.  And here is the happy couple...

The professional pictures were taken by her awesome photographer Elisabeth Millay