Teacher Survival Kit

After what seemed too short of a summer vacation, it’s back to school.  My daughter was so excited and could not wait for all the back to school shopping.  Actually, she was ready for the shopping even before the school year ended!  Picking out new supplies, backpack, lunch box, new clothes, etc.  So much fun going through the aisles and seeing the vast number of choices.  It can be overwhelming, but she was focused and had her list of needed supplies but of course there are always items not on the list that she just absolutely must have and make their way into our cart.  For instance, a cute little two colored stapler.  This I can’t say ‘no’ to as it really didn’t cost much and, I have to admit, it is super cute.

Now, I thought we were all set.  We got all our supplies, new clothes picked out for first day, knew what we were going to pack for lunch.  Then, my daughter has a brilliant idea.  Let’s do something special for the teacher.  What a great idea and is really sweet of her to think of her teacher.  But what do to.  My daughter came up with the idea of a Teacher Survival Kit.  It is such a great idea for a back to school gift.  She did some research online and we came up with a list of items to pack into a craft supply box.  All items a teacher may need and enjoy.  We also came up with an instruction list (see below) so that her teacher would understand the meaning behind each of the items.  We packaged it all up and tied it with a nice sparkly bow that my daughter picked out.  I think this looked so nice when it was all put together.  All items were easy to find in our local stores like Target and Walmart and it didn’t cost much or take much time to do.

 

 

teacher survival kit

At the end of the day, as I was waiting to pick up my daughter in car line, her teacher made a point to walk over and thank us for the wonderful gift.  She was so surprised and appreciative of the kind and thoughtful gift.  What a great way to start off the year!

This is a nice way to do a little something for the hard work that our teachers do each and every day.  The Teacher Survival Kit can be modified to the “likes” of your teachers and can be done anytime during the year.  It would make a great teacher appreciation or holiday gift as well.  Please write back and let me know how you like this idea and how you might use it.  Thank you and have a great school year!

 


Laced Fingerless Gloves

I recently purchased the craft book Generation T beyond fashion by Megan Nicolay.  She is amazing.  Who knew there were so many ways to bring life back into an old T-shirt.  The laced fingerless gloves or, “gimme some glovin” as Megan Nicolay calls it, was the first project I tried out of her book for my daughter, although I didn’t use a T-shirt but an old pair of her leggings instead.  She needed something a little extra for her Halloween costume, she was half an angel and half devil, and these laced gloves were just the ticket.  She thought they were cool and a little bit rocker that fit the devil side of her costume. Read More


Halloween Spider Craft

I wish I could take credit for this one but it belongs to Michael’s.  When I was searching for a fun way to serve candy at my daughter’s Halloween class party, I came across this on Michael’s website under projects.  I instantly fell in love with this creative way to use a craft pumpkin and the instructions are pretty straight forward.  I did make a couple minor modifications to my spider, for instance, instead of using decoupage and glitter for the mouth opening, I just went straight to glitter glue (combined two items into one easy step) and then I used a different design for the eyes.  But these were just my preferences,  feel free to make your own modifications to make this your own creation; use different colors, sizes, or other creative ideas you can think of.  It’s Halloween and spiders, monsters, and ghouls come in all shapes and sizes. Read More


Halloween

Halloween is such a great time to be creative, not take yourself too seriously and just have some fun.  There are so many ideas from cute and whimsy to gruesome and scary.  My taste falls somewhere in between.  Approachable, maybe a little bit of scare or the unexpected but never gory or creepy.  This year since we haven’t done any landscaping around our new house yet and it is rather bare, we decided to decorate part of our front lawn like a cemetery .  I know it’s been done many times before, but it is a first for us.  The kids loved it!  They really got into the Halloween spirit and helped with everything too.  Picking out the decorations and planning the design.  We had the typical tombstones and skeletons coming out of the ground but added a little bit of special effects with a fog machine that we hid inside a tombstone designed to conceal it with a skeleton face and red light up eyes and a wide open mouth where the fog would expel from.  Then we found light up skeleton heads that react to passers-by with various sounds and sayings.  Perfect for the unexpected trick-or-treater!  Overall I think it turned out great and loved to see the reaction of the trick-or-treaters when the cemetary would call out to them.  This was lots of fun to do as a family and will probably add on more for next year.  Read More