It’s that fabulous end of the year when you have to come up with teacher gifts. At my kids’ school there is no “room mom”, which means there is no one to simply give you check to and be done. (I loved it at the preschool when the “room mom” just told me I owed 100$ and she’d take care if all the gifts– holiday, birthday, teacher appreciation, end of the year– I miss that!)
So now I am out on my own for the gifts. What to do? The teachers are with my kids all day, but I barely know their favorite color. (BTW Princess’ teacher like aubergene.) How do give a not-so-personal/personal gift, something that will not go straight to the trash? (Think no mugs, nothing with apples, no calendars.) It needs to be:
- Simple
- Heart warming
- Personal/Impersonal at the same time
- Not so Cliche
- Not that pricey (I am getting stuff for 7 people here– two teachers, one tutor and four assistant teachers. Sorry music, gym, art and spanish folks!)
Lets turn to Pinterest, shall we?
- It seems to have page after page of summer towel sets, complete with sunscreen, and a trashy magazine. (That’s okay I guess. But with all the sunscreen maybe I should add in a bottle of vitamin D.)
- Lots of options of wordplay themes gifts.– I want to be a smart cookie like you! with a jar of cookies. Water bottles with bows and signs that say “Thanks for quenching our thirst of knowledge.” A basket of apples with a “Couldn’t have picked a better teacher.” (Clever and Goofy at the same time.)
- The Diaper Cake grows up. Let me say first I HATE a diaper cake and who ever came up with that should be kicked out of the country. But it seems the diaper cake has found new life as a school supply cake with crayons and glue and pencils. You get the idea.
- A wreath/picture frame made of hot glued crayons. (I already did that for Xmas damn!)
What am I left with….
For the two main teachers and the tutor, I decided to go with a goofy word-play gift!
I started with the FREE printable gift tags here. Thanks to the blog GigglesGalore.net I thought these were the cutest because they have the little ruler.
Then I needed the seeds. I found these oh so cute “Garden in a Bag” seeds a local trendy restaurant in town and snapped them up. I wish the had the tomato seed bags left, but looks like I was too late and I got stuck with the herbs (English Thyme and Cilantro.)
They are great because it is all in one. You open the bag and everything you need is inside. You spread the seed around, add water and you are basically finished! You can grow this plant in the brown bag! No pot required. Plus, it is organic! (If you do not happen to have a trendy, organic seed-selling restaurant down the street you can pick these little cuties online at Inhabit Shop.)
Like I said, this is a no pot required operation. None-the-less I thought that gift packaging was important so I got a little tin pot, added some gardening gloves and wrapped it all up in cellophane wrap!
To Be Continued…
The Booky Mom 