Teaching With Style: gifts

Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts
Two years ago for Valentine's Day, I made heart shaped crayons for my class and taped them to a cute little card with washi tape.  I loved that project!

This year, I made treats for my son's class, needed something non-candy for my daughter's preschool class (no sugar allowed at her school), and also something for my class.  That means, my class got something easy.  Sorry kids!

My school had professional development on Friday, so I needed my class' treats ready for Thursday.  Wednesday night, I sent my husband to the store for a bag of candy and he came back with Wonka's Sweetart Lollipops.  I printed out these cards on light pink cardstock and taped them to the lollipop.  Easy peasy!


My son is in 3rd grade, so he wanted something "cool".  That means no hearts, no pink, and certainly no mushy sayings.  We went to the store Thursday night and picked up a bag of Pixie Stix for a little over $2.00.  Crafting in the Rain had an adorable idea of taping the Pixie Stix to the card with washi tape.  So I found the most boy-ish washi tape I had and printed his cards on orange cardstock.  I didn't have a class list for his class, so we made them without names.  It's way easier to pass out without names, anyway.  I love how they turned out!

Since my daughter's preschool is sugar-free, she got heart shaped crayons.  I used a different method than I did in the post I linked at the top.  I peeled the wrappers off a bunch of broken crayons and sorted them by color into ziplock bags.  I melted the crayons in a small metal bowl placed on top of a boiling pot of water and poured the melted wax into heart-shaped soap molds from the craft store.  I made them with two colors.  The first color I poured halfway.  Let it dry for a few minutes, then poured the second color to fill the mold.  I put the full mold in the freezer to help it harden faster.  Then I popped them out and put them in little zipper bags I had for jewelry.  I loved these bag toppers from My Frugal Adventures, but needed mine to be smaller to fit the small zipper bags.  

I also made cute little teacher gifts.  This is the one for my daughter's teacher.  I cut the vinyl on my Silhouette Portrait.  I used the apple from The School Supply Addict and KG's Always a Good Time font for the name.  I bought purple mason jars at the craft store and found these cool cup lids.

These would be great for Teacher Appreciation, too! 

If you are interested in the cards I made above, you can download them {HERE}.

What did you do for Valentine's Day? 



I love giving and receiving gifts - most people do! This year I am participating in 5 different gift exchanges.  It's a lot! And some of the people I've never bought gifts for before, so I'm not entirely sure what they would want.  I could go the easy route and choose something off their Amazon Wish List, have it shipped to their house, and call it a day.  But I don't like the easy route! 

When I'm buying for someone that I'm not too sure about what to get them, I either do one of the following:
  1. Buy them something unique, like from Etsy, the Museum of Modern Art, or Uncommon Goods
  2. Buy them something unique to Maui, where I live
  3. Buy them something I would want, like a makeup set from Sephora or a scarf from Anthropologie
  4. Or make them something
My "make something" repertoire isn't that amazing.  I like simple projects that don't take a whole lot of time.  And I LOVE using materials I already have on hand.  That's bonus points in my book.

Here are some real gifts I've made for people.  They are functional, pretty cute in my opinion, don't take forever to make, and are fairly easy.  
 Cloth napkins

Coffee Cozy

Cork frame

Silhouette ornament of a friend's dog

Oven mitt - this one was probably the hardest, but I've gotten better at it.

Simple tote or reusable shopping bag

A painting I'm working for a friend this year! Can you tell what it's going to be?


But what if you are still stuck on what to get someone? Luckily, Coupon.com's blog The Good Stuff has 3 gift guides:
  • Budget-Friendly Gifts 
  • Gifts for Enthusiasts
  • Hostess Gifts
And while you're checking it out, you can enter the sweepstakes that's running from today until December 25th! There will be one $100 winner per week and one $500 grand prize winner! 


The Good Stuff 2014 Holiday Sweepstakes


What are you planning to give this holiday season? 

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Coupons.com.  However, all ideas and opinions are my own.  



Here's a little peak into what my class did for Mother's Day!

First, we started off with Arlene's Mother's Day Traditions Around the World unit.  LOVED it!

The kids read a nonfiction article about how different countries around the world celebrate Mother's Day.  They located the countries on a map and took notes about what they read.  Then they answered comprehension questions and filled out a Venn diagram to compare a country of their choice with the United States.  Arlene included a paragraph organizer and also a final draft paper for students to write about the country's celebrations they like the best.  The kids thought this was interesting and I loved how scaffolded the lesson was the entire way.  It was perfect for my class!

There are tons more activities included in this pack, but we also did a matching activity with the countries and facts about their Mother's Day traditions and a fun activity where students learned about famous mothers.

We then made a set of coupons from Arlene's pack and made origami envelopes to put them in.  You can find directions for the envelopes here.

A couple of weeks ago we made pinch pots out of ceramic clay, thanks to a generous Donorschoose project.  They got bisque fired and we glazed them last week.  I begged politely asked the art teacher to glaze fire them before Friday.  He was so sweet and did!  I was so thankful, because I needed them for our last Mother's Day goody - soap!

I ordered soap from Joanns.com a month ago and it didn't come in time!  Never.ordering.from.them.again!  Thankfully, I had a presentation in Maui last week, so I could go to Ben Franklin crafts and pick up a block of clear glycerin soap and some soap coloring.

I also used some essential oils I already had.  I got them so I could make homemade bug spray from this pin.  Bugs be crazy 'round here!  I had to dilute the oils with water because I read never to add essential oil directly to soap.  


I got to work and chopped the soap block into chunks.  I then filled a 2 cup Pyrex bowl with them.  I put it in the microwave for 1 minute and it came out completely melted.


I mixed in the coloring and added the diluted scent.  I first made some green that I could cut up into chunks and drop into blue soap.  I poured the green soap into a meatloaf pan, let it melt, then cut it up.  I also poured some green in the very top of my mold to add some dimension to my soap.


I then made blue soap, poured it into molds I already had from making crayons, and dropped in some of the green chunks.  You definitely do not need to add the different colored chunks.  I was just playing around with it.


I put them in the freezer and let them harden.  This is what it looked like when I popped it out of the mold!  Peppermint scented flip flops!  Love!


This was the set I made at home.  When I did it at school, I broke the kids into 3 groups, based on their color choice: pink, blue, or green.  I scented the pink soap with pink grapefruit, the green with peppermint, and the blue with lavender.  I let the kids pick which mold they wanted: heart, flower, seashell, or flipflop.  I then used my neighbor's microwave to heat the soap and put them in the staff fridge to harden.  While I was working with the small groups, the rest of the class was working on their Mother's Day Around the World paragraph from Arlene's pack with an assistant teacher.   

How did you celebrate Mother's Day?