The little things that make me happy here on Bliss Road~~Emily Keaton

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Spreading Some Christmas Joy

My 7th-grader adores her teachers. Now that she is in middle school with a whole set of academic teachers rather than the single classroom teacher she had in elementary school, it would be easy to call it quits on teacher gifts. But she'll have none of that. Last year she wanted to give a little something to her core academic teachers for Christmas, so she made them THESE little sets of holiday gift tags. She made similar sets of gift tags for her Girl Scout co-leaders this year and packaged them in little glass jars (sadly, we forgot to take photos before she presented them!). But with six school teachers she wanted to remember with gifts and four Sunday School teachers (a teacher and helper for each of my kids), we had a list of 10 folks that we wanted to do a little something for, which left me scratching my head.

Luckily, all that head scratching struck during my daughter's Girl Scout fall candy & nut sale. This is an optional fundraiser that her troop tried out for the first time this year. I spied these fabulous cans of candy fruit slices ($5 for 14 oz), and decided that with six cans, we could repackage the candy with some fun handmade packaging and spread a little sweet Christmas joy to all 10 teachers. It was a win-win situation: we found a great product to turn into a meaningful gift AND supported her troop at the same time. Here's how our gifts turned out.
The handstamped gift bags and tags were inspired by this fabulous creation made by my sweet blogging friend Emily Niehaus. I loved how she took a plain paper bag (far cheaper than a handled one, which start at 59 cents each at my A. C. Moore) and gave it an upscale look simply by creating handles with an oval punch! I found a package of 10 plain white "craft sacks" by Paperbilities (measuring 4.75" across by 8.5" tall) at A.C. Moore for $1. Yup, that's just 10 cents each!!

My daughter and I worked together assembly-line style to stamp each bag with some candy stamps from The Angel Company (which I've had forever!) and the fruit slice stamp from Stampin' Up's Tart & Tangy set, using ink colors to match the candy. We repackaged the fruit slices in clear cellophane treat bags which are now nestled inside the white gift bags for giving.

All that remained was to tie on some coordinating gift tags. I had the best time creating these with digital papers and elements from Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly collection and Echo Park's Everybody Loves Christmas collection. The sentiment is a stamp from Unity's Greetings of Christmas kit, and the frame is from Just Wanted to Say, an {ippity} by Unity kit. I'm entering it in the Unity Gift Wrapping challenge, which includes gift tags. Here's a closeup:
In other news, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent good wishes my way after being featured as Moxie Fabber of the Week over at Paper Crafts' Moxie Fab World yesterday. I am completely honored, as well as flabbergasted, to have been chosen!! When Cath Edvalson emailed me back in October to say that she wanted to feature me, you could have knocked me over with a feather. In fact, I'm still pinching myself!! And as exciting as all of this has been, I have been even more overwhelmed by the ensuing avalanche of warm words and congratulations from so many folks either by email, comments here, or comments on the MFW post. Warm fuzzies are the best :). THANK YOU!!

Thanks for sticking with me through this loooooooooooooong post. And, as always, many thanks for sharing my little slice of bliss!
Emily

13 comments:

Jessi Fogan said...

...long? I love reading every word :)
What a fab gift idea, and I love that it supports her troop at the same time! You really can't get better than that. Your daughter is growing up just like her wonderful mom, making sure to thank people. I love it!

Erin (Homemade Cards by Erin) said...

Aren't these cute goodie bags.... you're so thoughtful (I'm never this organized).

Pam said...

Cute candy bags! Glad your daughter is so thoughtful of her teachers! It was fun to see you featured at Moxie Fab World! You are the reason I follow it now, because of all the Tuesday Trigger's you've entered!! You go Emily! And can't wait to see the magazine with your cards in it! :)
Pam

Carol Hurlock said...

I enjoyed your post Emily. Your gift combo for the kids teachers and such is just adorable. I love the cute tag and the fabulous bag you created. It always makes you kids feel good to give something to their teachers. I did it for years too! I actually miss it now-but hey the college teachers would think we had flipped huh!!!! lol Beautiful job with your gift assemble!

Karen B. said...

How cute are these? Love the fun nature of them too. And yes, I was in the hospital at Christmas but was bound and determined to not spend the whole holiday there so we were sent home at seven pm!

~amy~ said...

Such cute gifties! Did you hear me squeal when I sawyou on the Moxie blog?! I was thrilled to see ya!!!!!!

yyam said...

Ooh...yummy! Love the happy colors and the fact that some are edible! lol

Woohoo on being Moxie Fabber of the week! :)

Benzi said...

This will surely cheer some teachers and what fun the two of you must have had getting these bags and tags together. I'm sure they will be appreciated.

A big congrats on being featured as Moxie Fabber of the Week. What an honor, Emily!!!

Emily (stampingout on SCS) said...

Oh, I just love how your gift bags turned out, Em! The teachers will love them. I found my self scratching my head this year for teacher gifts. 6 total not to mention speech and occupational therapists makes for a long list. I love your idea and the stamping looks marvelous.
A GREAT BIG CONGRATS for being the Moxie Fab featured stamper. I was super excited to see your smiling face over there!
HUGS!

Em

Colleen Dietrich said...

Emily, how are you doing today? Still floating? ;) I am, for you!

I so enjoyed hearing about how you planned these teacher gifts, and it's wonderful to see them. They remind me of either Willy Wonka's factory, or the scenes from The Nutcracker, but either way, they are fun and delicious!

Meg said...

Oh, it's so nice to hear secondary school teachers getting gifts! I'm glad your daughter is enjoying all of her teachers. These gifts are going to be such a hit!

Off to go check out Moxie Fab, sounds like there is quite a bit of excitement over there! :)

lisa arana said...

Seriously love that your daughter wanted to give each teacher something. So special. AND big HUGE congrats on the Moxie feature!!! So well deserved.

Aleks said...

These are so sweet, I bet the teachers loved them!