2015 Teachers Gifts

                   

                         

                                 

When I have the time available & the right idea forming as a plan in my mind I like to hand make my childrens teacher gifts for the end of the year.

In the past I've made bookmarks that had a scrappy, layered feel & scripture on them. I have found bookmarks to be a great option when you are making a gift for a male teacher. You can really personalise what you make for them; colour, scripture & overall design.

In 2015 all of my girls teachers & TA's were women.  That made it very easy for me & also gave me a broad range of ideas that would be suitable. However I was time poor due to a chronically sick Miss 3.

Thanks to an unfinished previous project from almost 2 years ago, which is very unusual for me, I had some 'girls' already stamped & cut. Their outfits were stamped too so it was just a matter of cutting them out & putting the right ones together. 

Miss 6 & Miss 10 helped me pick which girls hair & clothing best matched the woman in question & they also helped me water colour their hair colour to the correct shade.  Their was 3 layers to the backing of these tags; the original tag shape purchased in a large pad, silver shimmer paper & blue card stock.  Miss 6 & Miss 10 punched out the star shapes from the blue card stock so that the silver shimmer paper would show through. 

After that there was a little bit of machine stitching, paper tearing, blinging up the girls and the stars with Kindy Glitz, Kaiser pearls and diamonds, & glossing. Miss 6 & Miss 10 wrote the bible quote themselves on shimmer card and then I drew a box around each word & cut it out.

The final steps were sealing the girls, attaching them to the 'tags' with 3D tape & affixing the word boxes that made the quote. Lastly some pretty ribbons & wool to complete the tag/bookmark look.

Normally I would spray with a gloss finish varnish but on the night we completed them I discovered I had run out & we needed to hand the gifts in the very next day.  So I sealed the whole item with satin finish decoupage sealer, the next best thing, just not as glossy as I'd like.  

The satin finish decoupage sealer seems to take the shininess out of the items that have received the glossy accents/dimensional magic treatment & finishing the whole item off with a coat of glossy varnish seems to bring that back again, which is why I prefer it. But sometimes you just have to work with what's at your fingertips. :-)

Miss 6 & Miss 10 wrote a unique thank to each woman on the back & I date stamped them as I do all my art projects.

The gifts were all very well received. :-)

"Daughter of the Star Breather" Psalm 33:6

A Very Special Pregnancy Album

I cannot really tell you my SIL's story of her journey to motherhood as it is not mine to tell; but I can testify that she had a very long and often disheartening road until, miraculously, she was blessed with a healthy son just in time for Christmas.

My SIL has always had a very special relationship with her nieces, my girls, so it was really important to my SIL to include them in her pregnancy shoot, as well as my MIL.

There can be a wonderful bond formed between mother and daughter when a baby is on the way.  

I believe their collective joy is obvious in the pictures I took.

I've also been told in the past that being presented with an empty scrapbook can seem more like a chore than a gift, so I have started handing my photos over, only to the very special people in my life, in completed scrapbooks. 

I include jounalling spaces, but leave them blank.

Like I said;  It's not my story to tell.

I would however like to share some of the scrapbook pages I created in my SIL's album.

               

                                                             

Not as special a Christmas gift as her new little son, but hopefully a close second. :-)