Summer's almost here!
May 17, 2013
Summer is almost here! Seems hard to believe, since we had 6" of snow on the ground just two weeks ago, but next week marks the last week of school for my kids. I can hardly believe it! Where did the year go? I love creating goodies to spoil my kids' teachers. I try to give a little something handmade every year at Christmas...but I'm ashamed to say I was too busy this year and it didn't get done. So I'm going to try to make up for it on the last day of school. I put together some treats to make that last day even sweeter. Let me show you.
I wanted to stay away from the traditional teacher-y apple type gifts and do something fun and summery. When I give gifts, I also assume everyone is like me (probably a bad idea), and gets overwhelmed with knick-knacks, so I like to give something they can enjoy, and then not feel bad about not keeping around for years and years. :-) This time I went with a flavored drink and some candy, along with a personal note to each. Very simple. The cost of these items was about $1.50 per gift. All of the stamps/paper/dies/inks are from Papertrey Ink. There is a complete thumbnail list of supplies at the bottom of this post...just click on the thumbnails to view the products.
I decorated the bottles using the Wine Bottle Tag die embellished with oranges from the Fruitful set. I made it interactive as well, using the Zipper Border die. I stamped the word "orange..." from the Fruitful Sentiments set on the outside of the tag.
The tear-away zipper strip reveals the rest of the sentiment to say "Orange...you glad it's summer?" The "orange you glad" joke was a favorite of my youngest for a long time! :-) I'll show you details on how I did this a little later in the post. Oh, and a little time-saving tip - the circle that's left when you diecut the Wine Bottle Tag is the perfect size for stamping the larger orange, no need to make another diecut. The smaller orange was diecut using the circle from the Hello Sunshine die set, but could be done with a 1 1/4" circle punch if you have one of those in your tool box.
For my tote I used the Favor It Box 4 die, which I think looks just like a beach bag when it's all done up! I tucked some flip flops inside using the Flipping Out stamp set and coordinating dies. The sunglasses are from A Day at the Beach.
To create the "towel", I simply rolled a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Hawaiian Shores Polka Dot paper. Inside is a personal note to each teacher. There is also a bag of candy. I used Peachy-Os...the sugared orange slices would probably have matched my theme better, but I don't think I know of anyone who likes eating those more than the peach o's, at least not at my house.
I have a few tips for you just in case you'd like to recreate today's project. I love mass producing things...it makes me feel super productive. I usually start by creating one complete project, then when I have everything looking the way I want it to, I set out to create the rest.
Gathering supplies and diecutting everything is always my first step. I kind of love the way it all looks together, just waiting to be stamped and assembled.
Here is a close-up of the Wine Bottle Tags. After diecutting the tag, I diecut the Zipper Border strip near the bottom edge.
The Wine Bottle Tag is too big to fit crosswise in the diecut machine in order to use the Zipper Border, so just fold the top portion back along the score line. Position the Zipper Border where you want it, then secure it with a Post-it note. Post-its are great for diecutting...enough adhesive to hold everything in place, but not too much so that it tears your paper when you remove it.
To create the "you glad it's summer?" insert, I simply printed it onto cardstock using my computer/printer. The Wine Bottle tag is 2 1/2" wide, so I made sure my sentiment would fit in that area before printing. I then cut them into strips, making sure the strip was wider than the opening of the zipper cut.
Then I just positioned the sentiment strip behind the zipper cut area and used my sewing machine to stitch just above and below the diecut area, making sure to catch the sentiment strip in my stitching. You could use thin strips of an adhesive like Scor-Tape too, if you'd rather skip the sewing part, just make sure you don't place any in the "tear away zone". :-) I also stamped the "pull here" arrow from the Movers & Shakers set so they would be sure not to miss that the strip is meant to be torn.
My kids are excited to bring these fun treats to their teachers...but I'm making them wait until the last day of school. I had fun pulling elements from various sets to create these summery teacher gifts, but if you'd like to create something more traditional, Papertrey Ink has you covered in that area as well. Here are links to some Papertrey sets that would be perfect for creating teacher gifts (just click on the thumbnails):
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