Inexpenisve St. Patricks Day Teacher Gift Idea

I am always trying to come up with inexpensive ways to show our teachers how much we appreciate them. I try to do a little something each time a holiday rolls around. St. Patrick's Day is going to be here before we know it so we want to tell our teachers how "lucky" we are to have them!

I was in Bath and Body Works this past weekend and they have little St. Patty's Day hand sanitizers for $1. I bought one for each teacher (B&BW has tons of coupons out there that you can use with to make your purchase even sweeter!).

I think I came up with a cute little "thank you phrase" to go along with the sanitizer: "We are so lucky that you are "handy" at teaching!" For the helpers in the class, I wrote, "We are so lucky that you are so 'handy' at helping us!"

There were packages of these shamrocks on the $1 bin at Target. I just added some glue and put the "tag" on the shamrock.

 

I hole punched the shamrock and then I took the bottle of sanitizer and laid it on the back of the shamrock. I then took packaging tape and put it over the bottle and then to the shamrock so it would stay. I put a green ribbon in the hole so that we could hang them from the teachers door handles to their rooms.


The total cost is maybe $1.10 for each teacher! Cheap, but yet, it is a nice little gesture to say thanks on St. Patty's Day!

Valentines for Classmates

I thought this would make a cute and different Valentines card for my kid's to hand out to their classmates and the best part is that it didn't cost that much!!!

I think that owls are really cute and there is so much out there right now with the owl motif. When I saw these owl bookmark kits at Halloween time at Target, I thought they were the cutest things. I was not going to pay the $5.00 for them, but knew they would be the first thing I snatched up when all the Halloween merchandise went on clearance (if I was lucky enough to get some before they were gone). I was able to grab enough boxes at 90% off after Halloween for my kids to hand out to their classmates!!!!! I didn't know which holiday I would use them for, but in a previous post, you will see that I decided to do the box of crayons for Christmas. So, the bookmarks are perfect for Valentines Day. Previously, I had purchased "library cards" from one of my favorite crafty sites theplaidbarn.com. I thought these library cards would go perfect with the bookmarks!!!!! Brilliant! So, the kids and I sat down and we started putting the bookmarks together. I loved this because it was fun, family time spent together. After we got them done, we had to make them look more "Valentiney" so I cut out little hearts from red contact paper and we stuck them on the owls. Another thing we did was add little plastic flowers (that I also got on theplaidbarn.com) for the girls in each class. This made them look a little more "festive" for the Valentine holiday.
On the library cards, I wrote my child's name under the "author" part and then under "title", I wrote "Happy Valentines Day!" Then, under "date checked out", I wrote "2-14-13". On the main lines of the cards, I wrote this: "Hooty Hoot! You are so wise Valentine!"

We glued foam hearts onto the bottom of the card as well to make them that much more festive. My first grader was getting pretty tired, so I wrote most of hers out, but my third grade son should be able to write all of his (we can spread them out over time so he can do a few each night).

I love homemade gifts so much more then store bought and this little project is something the kids can use and it is not candy! ;0)

These are the kits from Target (Halloween)

These are the finished Valentines. We will put the bookmark on the card. You can't really see it, but one has the pink flower on the head and they both have a red heart by their left wing. I think they turned out cute!!!




Happy Valentine's Crafting!!!!
 

Inexpensive Twist to Jingling Your Friends

We have always "Boo'd" our family and friends for Halloween, but wanted to start something for Christmas and found "You've Been Jingled" (you can make copies on www.beenjingled.com). It is pretty much the same thing as Halloween. Take this little note and some goodies to friends and families and ring on their door and RUN! You don't want them to know it was you. Then, they are suppose to keep it up and do the same thing with their family and friends.

The kids look forward to these activities each year. We added a little "twist" to ours. Along with some homemade cookies, we include a game for that family to play together during the holiday season! And, with all the great coupons out there for games, it is not that expensive to do. I just went to Target last night and they had 2 Elefun games on clearance for $4.98 and I used the $3 off 2 so that made them pretty inexpensive! You could even just give them a deck of cards and then print off the rules to some of your favorite card games to give with it. I think our lives get so crazy and hectic that to sit down and play a game anymore is sometimes forgotten. This way, a new game shows up at their door and we add a little note from our family: "Tis the season to spend with those you love. Here is a fun game for you to enjoy together! Happy Playing!"

Just a thought for the upcoming holiday season!

Cute Valentines Gumball Machines and Mailboxes

These little crafts turned out so cute and they were pretty simple to do. To make the first one, I just spray painted clay pots and their bases red. I then turned the pot upside down and glued (with strong glue from the craft section) a glass bowl to it (the bowl is upright on the pot). The base just "rests" on the top of the bowl. You take the base off the top which enables you to get the "goodies" inside. I added some ribbon on the outside. I made these for the teachers this year for Valentine's Day, but you could do this for any holiday. Spray paint them black and use orange ribbon for Halloween or red and green for Christmas. The possibilities are endless! You can make tiny ones for birthday parties and the guests can take them home! How cute!

This is a picture of them all done and put together. Pretty cute!

With this craft, I took the mailboxes they have in the $1 bins at Target and glued them to a candlestick that I spray painted red. I made a pink one for my daughter and a red one for my son. I will fill these mailboxes for them on Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine Crafting!

Halloween Word Find

My son is in first grade and he has been bringing home word finds that he has done and he also has spelling tests every week. When I was asked to come up with some games for his classroom Halloween party, one of them that I thought would be fun, and appropriate, was a "Halloween Word Find". I used my Cricut to cut out the letters to "Happy Halloween". I glued them onto square sheets of paper. I laminated them as well so they would hold up and could be used over and over. When I got to the classroom, I hid these square, letter cards all around the room. The kids had to find all the letters and work together to put the "saying" together. Out of all the games we played, this was the most popular. Kids love to find things and then it was even fun to work as a team to get the words together. They were all sounding out the letters and working together to get the task done. They asked if we could do it again after they finished it. This game could be adapted to any party, any theme, any holiday! Have fun!