DIY Personalized Teacher Stationary

I love getting my children's teachers personalized gifts.  I think they're so fun and, well . . . personalized!  I've done clocks, candy jars, vases, notepads, and stationary. I have to admit that in the past I've spent way too much money on personalized stationary.  Last year after receiving my beautiful order of personalized note cards in the mail I looked and them and thought, "I can totally do this myself for a fraction of the cost," and so this year I did.

I purchased some blank note cards and envelopes at Michael's.  A pack of eight cost me about $1. I also purchased some apple clip art on Etsy for about $1 as well.

I designed my cards in a good ol' Word document.  I couldn't decide which look I liked better so I did them both--four of each.

I then printed them off and loved how they turned out . . . crisp, clean, and school-y.

Making this personalized stationary myself was definitely a more cost effective way to go.  I know my kids teachers write so many notes throughout the year, so hopefully this comes as a practical gift that they will readily use.

I bundled the note cards together with a gift card to the teachers favorite restaurant and a thoughtful note that my children wrote to their teachers.  My kids are excited to deliver their gifts this week.

Teacher Card

Looking for a creative card for you kids to tack along with a teacher gift?

My son liked the card that he made last year for his teacher so much that he decided to do the same thing again for his teacher this year.  We changed it up a little this time though.

See the original post here.  Find the free printable tag here.

Back-to-School Feast

One of my favorite family traditions is our back-to-school feast and theme. Every year, usually the night before school starts, we have a little "feast" and introduce a new theme for our family.  Since it is their feast my kids get to decide the menu and I set the table nicely and display our new theme.  This year they chose monkey bread pizza, a fruit tray, and some apple cider from the nearby orchard.

My oldest could hardly wait to discover the new theme!  He kept trying to sneak a peak at what I was working on.  Our theme this year is "Suit up!"   We plan on talking about knights and armor--putting on the armor of God and also acting like a knight (being a good friend, acting like a gentleman, etc).

This year I made little place mats for each boy to remind them of our theme.

And I also made some keychains out of shrinky dinks.  My boys put the keychains on their backpack as a daily reminder of how to act.  

This little tradition of ours gets everyone excited for school and gives us a good focus for the school year.  I'd love for you to share your back-to-school traditions!

Lunch Box Notes

I love to add little notes to my boys' lunches.  Sometimes they are on a napkin.  Occasionally I'll find printables of jokes that I'll throw in there.  But perhaps my favorite is the banana.

I found this idea online a few years ago.  All you need is a banana and a toothpick.  In the morning while I pack the boys' lunches I scratch a note into the side of a banana with the toothpick.  You don't even have to break the skin--just hard enough to make a slight indentation.  By lunchtime the note has turned nice and dark for the boys to easily read.  

It's such a fun way to send a little love to my boys during the day.  Do you have any fun ways to send love to your kids while they are gone all day?

100 Days of School Project

Is the 100th day of school coming up at your child's school?  

What a fun day to celebrate!  How come they didn't do this when I was in school?

Last year my daughter worked on a project to bring to school on the 100th day. 

After brain storming with me for ideas she decided that she wanted to make a paper gumball machine and put 100 gumballs inside.

We printed off a template of a gumball machine here.

We used the template to create our own gumball machine.  Then we gathered colorful scraps of paper and a single hole punch and got to punching out all those gumballs.

It was a lot of work for a five year old to make 100 punches and count out all those tiny circles, but she persevered.

And there you have it.  100 gumballs to celebrate 100 days of school.

What kinds of projects have your children done to celebrate the 100th day of school?

"Mint" to be my Teacher

Here's another simple idea that can be used as a teacher gift.  I actually made this as a Christmas gift for the teacher's aid in my daughter's kindergarten class.  It didn't seem like nearly enough considering she sewed flannel pillow cases for each student in the class.  I just thought that was the sweetest thing ever.  My daughter is so lucky to have her as a teacher.

To make this little gift I filled a party bag with some chocolate mints and made up this little gift tag to go along with it using my 2" scalloped punch.  I was going for the green and red since it was Christmas time but I also made up some green options available below.

For those of you able to access the Google doc it's available HERE.

If not, click on the image below, copy and paste into a word doc.

What kind of gifts have you given teachers in the past, or are you giving this year?  I'd love to know!

Teacher Appriciation Gift

Teacher appreciation Day is on May 8 (which also happens to be my wedding anniversary!).  It will be here before you know it.  Inspired by Rachel, I made this vase for my daughters kindergarten teacher this year.

I found the vase at the dollar store and Jeanine was nice enough to make the vinyl and send it clear across the country for me.  Aren't sisters great like that?

 Now I just need to decide what to put in it.  I'm drawing a blank here.  Should I stick with the apples?  Maybe some freshly sharpened no. 2 pencils?  What would you put in it?  I'd love some ideas!

Check back next week for another teacher appreciation gift idea with a free printable.

Back to School Mini Survival Kit

It seems like just about everyone in the country has started school but us. Out here school doesn't start until tomorrow. I know, it's late.

I'm a leader for our church's 8-11 year old girls group and to gear them up for school we made mini school survival kits last week for them to keep in their backpacks.

To make them, I picked up these Q-tip packs I found at the dollar store. (Can't find cute little cotton swab packs like this? What about a travel soap bar container?)

With the Q-tips taken out they make the perfect little case, just right for filling up with goodies to stick in your backpack.

One kit includes:

2 wet wipes

2 mints

1 hair elastic

1 card for listing emergency information

Several band-aids

Pocket tissues (which were slightly too big to fit in, but we included them anyways)

All nice and snug in a compact little case.

Now we're all ready for back to school.

Interested in assembling your own?

You can print your own labels by clicking on the links below.

First aid kit cover

Emergency information card

First aid kit labels (For Avery labels size 8252)

Teacher Appreciation

My oldest son started school in the fall, which means this is my first Teacher Appreciation week as a parent.  I struggled to come up with something unique yet simple that my son and I could give to his teachers.
 

After making some homemade granola (adapted from this recipe) I decided that it was just too yummy not to share!  So after filling up a few quart-sized ziplocks I placed them in brown paper sacks (very school-ish, no?) and added a cute topper made of scrapbook paper. Ta-da!

I also had my son draw a picture for each of his teachers and added a small thank-you note.

It's not anything spectacular but it's definitely heart-felt.