Christmas Teacher Gifts

Hello again my crafty friends! I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I really don't know where those weeks went. They were so busy!! If I didn't have photographic evidence of my Christmas events, I would be in disbelief that the holiday actually came and went!!

So let me go back to December 15th and post my teacher gifts that we gave to my girls' homeroom middle school teachers. I literally assembled these gifts on the 15th to give on the 16th - GASP!! Yes, that's how my whole holiday season has gone. I was not ahead of the game for ANYTHING!!! It's usually like this for me, though, so I am very glad I get my Christmas cards mailed the day before Thanksgiving. It's crazy, but I honestly don't know when I would get to them if I didn't do them in November.

Okay, enough babble and onto the teacher gifts:

Here is a vinyl personalization of the teacher's last name

on a rectangular platter from Michael's - Loved these!

I got this idea from the Expressions Vinyl blog.

This was pictured when the Stickles were freshly applied.

AGAIN, I made all of this the night before - Ugh.

I used a mix of Scrappy Moms Christmas stamps for this tag.

I know the cookies look a bit skimpy on this platter,

but I didn't have a lot of cookies baked yet at this point

in the season. Also, I wanted the personalization to peek a bit.

And lastly, I contributed to the middle school teachers' gift

where this teacher was included, so this was just extra.

He is a fave of both of my girls. :)

This was a Cricut Birthday Cake Art cartridge

for the other homeroom teacher!

We gave her my daughter's Cricut Cake Mini

earlier this Fall as we upgraded to the big one.

(Of course ours is still in the box - insert heavy sigh here)

I used mirrored cardstock and the Cricut Accent Essentials

cartridge to mimic the snowflake on this Target foil paper

from the dollar section- such fun paper! 

I also popped the middle dot up with 2 dimensionals.

This is a new Scrappy Moms stamp from their

"A Holiday to Remember" set - Love it!

Supplies:

• Cricut A Child's Year cartridge for green vinyl letters
• Cricut Stone Script cartridge for red vinyl letters welded on my Gypsy
• Cricut Simply Charmed cartridge for candy cane
• Cricut Accent Essentials cartridge for snowflake
• Expressions Vinyl outdoor vinyl in Red and Lime Tree Green
• Lime green, red, white, and mirrored cardstock scraps from my stash
• Scrappy Moms "A Holiday to Remember" and "Winter Wishes" stamp sets
• Stampin' Up Basic Black ink
• Stampin' Dimensionals on candy cane and snowflake (doubled up on snowflake)
• Icicles and Christmas Red Stickles

Ok, that's about it for this post. I am entering it into Fantabulous Cricut's Challenge # 91 - Trimming with a Tag. Thank goodness they gave extra time on this one!!

Enjoy the last few days of 2011!!

"Come to the Well" Gift Set for my Sis

Do you ever feel like your "bucket" is depleting? You give and give of yourself to others but all the while not making sure you replenish YOU? Many of us women are guilty of not taking time for ourselves to fill up spiritually, mentally and physically. My dear sister is one of them, and she celebrates a big milestone birthday today. In honor of this day of celebrating her, I compiled a gift to "fill her bucket." And I literally filled a bucket!

My sister and I attended a Christian concert with a couple of friends last month where Casting Crowns was the headliner band. It was amazing!

Casting Crowns' lead singer, Mark Hall, wrote a book called The Well, and also Casting Crowns' latest CD is called Come to the Well. It seemed fitting for me to assemble a birthday gift for my sister with these great bucket fillers! Jesus definitely invites us to come to the well and replenish.

And for the first time ever, I used a card sketch to design my card. I knew I wanted to use the bucket from the Country Life Cricut cartridge, but CardPatterns' current sketch challenge # 143 helped me put the card together. I stayed with the colors of the book, the CD, and the Bath & Body Works festive "VanillaTini" products that I also bought my sister. I love when a color scheme emerges out of a gift- it just pulls it all together!

Here is the card:

And . . . The goods!

 Chocolate definitely fills a bucket-

Chocolate Twizzlers and Charleston Chews

are 2 of my sister's faves!

A different angle to see the rest of the bible verse,

"The JOY of the LORD is your strength" Nehemiah 8:10

Now it's all assembled in the bucket . . .

And wrapped up for giving!

Card Supplies:

• Cricut Country Life cartridge for bucket cut from silver cardstock scrap
•  Stampin' Up Sage Shadow (retired) cardstock for card base - cut to fit a business sized envelope
• Stampin' Up Very Vanilla cardstock
• Stampin' Up scallop edge punch
• Hero Arts alphabet set for "Fill up." on front
• Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip ink
• Graphite Light ATT font
• Ribbon from Fall Fun spool found in Target's dollar section last year
• Crystal blue skittles for raindrops

Bucket supplies:

• Cricut Stone Script cartridge for bible verse welded on my Gypsy
• Cricut transfer paper (the letters were pretty little and frail, so this was VERY helpful)
• Brown vinyl purchased from Expressionsvinyl.com  
• Ivory metal bucket/pail from Joann in planter section
• Cellophane basket wrap
• Raffia

This gift was really fun to put together because it combined things I enjoy and wanted to give, it had a theme, the colors all worked together to create a natural feel, I was able to personalize it, and it all was meaningful to my sister. Insert big grin here. :)

Next, I will do a post of Christmas cards past, and then I will post this year's card. Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderfully crafty week!