30 days of creativity – day 12 – teacher’s survival kit

(I know, I know, it’s far too soon to be thinking about the end of the school year but my brain runs off without me and I just have to make these things!)

Take a bunch of seemingly arbitrary items – a glass jar, a little chocolate, cotton wool balls, a birthday candle, elastic band, marbles and a safety pin…

Add a handmade gift tag to explain the seemingly arbitrary items…

Put items in glass jar – and hey presto! A cute gift for your teacher at the end of term!

(Must remember about these in July!)

One smart cookie

It’s nearly the end of another school year and a friend asked me to make some gift tags which she is going to put on some jars of cookie mix. (There are lots of recipes on the web – like this one for example.)

I drew the cookie to make my own digi stamp – not the most difficult thing to draw but here is my image if you’d like to use it!! (Just right click on the image and save.)

I printed mine onto a light brown card, then coloured over with promarkers. I cut it out, then I cut a tag with my cricut machine – you could cut a simpler tag if you don’t have a fancy pants machine, or use a luggage label type tag.

Here’s a jpeg of my greeting too.

I printed a sheet of greetings, then it was simply a case of gluing all the bits onto the tag and adding some cute ribbon. I drew dots around the edge of my greeting with a black fineliner.

I quite like the cookie theme for a teacher’s leaving gift – watch this space; I might make a card next!

Soppy sentimental stuff

I’m not renowned for my soft, sentimental side.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a nice person but I don’t do the soppy, gushing, happy happy memory stuff very often.

I have three children, but I haven’t got a memory box for them. I’ve got a few odd things, their first shoes and those little plastic bracelets from the hospital.

But I haven’t kept the pregnancy stick with the blue line, or every single birthday card they ever received. I throw away tickets and drawings, and certificates for “being super in maths today.”

Well recently I found an old dress of Poppy’s, a little jersey “songbird” dress from Frugi, well worn and well loved with a few stained patches to prove it. One of my favourite dresses.

I almost threw it back in the cupboard, to gather a bit more dust and be forgotten again.

But instead I made myself a bag tag.

It’s just a heart shape, a little bit of padding and backed with pink corduroy and embellished with the buttons from the same dress. It makes me smile because it reminds me of little baby Poppy and all the times she wore it. Now she is a big girl, just started school, and she won’t go near a dress.

But she’s still my little baby and I’m secretly a great big softie.