Teacher Appreciation Week Round-up

It's Teacher Appreciation Week and our family has been having fun participating in our PTO's celebration! Our parent-teacher organization put out a flyer with suggestions of small gifts that we could bring to our teachers each day. Now, I'll be the first to admit that we went above and beyond what our PTO intended, but that's just kind of how I feel about our teachers this year. Plus, I did absolutely nothing last year because morning sickness was just kicking in, so I felt like I needed to make up for that. ;) So here is a round-up of our gifts for the week:

Monday: Bring your teacher an apple.

For the book apple, I got started with this tutorial. Once I had the apple made, I poured some red mist (you could use watercolors) into a bowl. I dipped the edges into the bowl and used a brush to get the very top. Colten really liked how the watercolor soaked into the pages and made them kind of ripply. I liked it, too.

For the brooch, I cut an apple shape from cream felt, used it as a template to cut a larger apple from red felt, and stitched the two pieces together (sandwiching the green felt leaf between the layers). I used Blue Moon Beads as apple seeds, as well as a few more stitches. I glued in the stem (something Carson found in the yard) and added a pin to the back.

Tuesday: Bring your teacher a flower from your garden.

Ummm, I don't garden, and unless a dandelion would do, I had to go another route. Keeping in mind that Colten's male teacher may not love roses, we opted for cacti. I got a cute, hot pink one for Mrs. V, though. To make the pots, I started with regular terra cotta pots. Using Faber-Castell's chalkboard paint, I gave each pot a couple of coats. Once dry, I used a chalk marker to write each teacher's name. Once that was dry, I gave the pots a chalk treatment - draw with regular chalk all over, then rub the chalk dust in. I used a paper towel to distress the names (just rubbed hard).

Wednesday: Bring your teacher a treat.

I found these small craft storage boxes and filled them with truffles. You could also fill compartments with school supplies, but since it was treat day, we stuck with chocolate. To decorate the tops, I used Studio Calico and DCWV patterned papers, some washi tape, and chalkboard labels by Fancy Pants. My chalk marker flaked right off of the labels, so I had to use my Silhouette Cameo to cut the words. I again used regular chalk to chalk up the labels, and embellished with wood veneer. I only put glue in the corners to attach to the boxes so that the teachers could remove it and use the boxes for something else later.

Thursday: Bring a school supply.

These were so fun and easy! I purchased white board markers and made magnets and bookmarks from A Flair for Buttons flair. To gift them in a fun way, I made dynamite containers. The containers are actually Pringles chips cans! These are the small cans, usually $1.00 at the Target checkout stand. I wrapped a piece of DCWV glitter paper around each canister, then hand-cut the exploding labels. "Blast!" is written in Basic Grey alphas, and I had each boy write out the rest. The fire is red and yellow tissue paper wrapped around the school supplies.

Friday: Write a note for your teacher's door.

I'm off the hook for Friday. This is something entirely up to the boys and done at school. However, Open House is next week and I've got one more gift for each teacher in the works. I'll share later :).

If you'd like to see more photos and close-ups of these projects, you can find them in my gallery here. Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa