Holiday Teacher Gifties 2012

Hi all! I have my shopping done, my shipping done, and my wrapping done too. It's been a chaotic few weeks, but I'm finally getting there, the Christmas cards have also been mailed! Woot woot! My kids are getting off school soon and I'll be really glad to have them home. :) We are going to do some baking and have some holiday fun. Later this week I am going out with a friend to celebrate my birthday (in case you are a new reader, I have a Christmas Day birthday, so I get to celebrate all month long, and sometimes even into January!) so it's a good week, in spite of all the sadness in the world. All we can do are count our blessings, you know?

I did want to share the teacher gifts I made this year for the boys teachers, and a few of the office staff. We had a problem earlier this year, and our school (which we have always loved) was so wonderful in helping us to right a particular situation, so I wanted to say thanks to some of the sweet office ladies who went out of their way to help us.

I like to give gift cards, and am always looking for a new and interesting way to give them outside of sticking them in a boring old envelope! You might remember some past ways I have done this, once in a Candy Bar slider, and once hanging from a bottle of hand soap. This year I decided to go with something new....

I bought these mini boxes of chocolate at the grocery store. they were only a dollar, and oh so cute. :) Most of the teachers were getting coffee gift cards, and I just kept thinking what could possibly be better than chocolate and good coffee? :) I figured the dimensions and scored to make an open ended box. To do this, figure out how wide each side is, then add 1/16" to each measurement. Then score at the measurements, and score along where you will fold the bottom. I like to use that super sticky tape with the red backing for boxes, then I KNOW they will stay together and not pop open. :) For you Stampin' Up! aficionados, it's what they call "Sticky Strip."

I wanted a little notch in the open end of the box, to make it easy to pull the candy out. You can see here, how I used a circle punch to do that.

I went to Archiver's this morning, I had my coupons and was looking for some sort of a pocket die to put the gift cards in. Sure enough they had this Quickutz library pocket die, and it was marked 24.99. Well, I'm thinkin' that' s a bit steep for me this time of year, but I had to get these done. Today. So I decided to bite the bullet and get it with my 20% off coupon. As I'm waiting in line, I realize that my coupons are EXPIRED, ugh! So, I'm sitting there debating what to do when it's my turn to go up to the counter. I explained my expired coupons and she said she could probably give me the current coupon. Then she rings it up, and it came up (drum roll please...) SIX DOLLARS and some change! :) Happy craft supply dancing! LOL

So, I added the pocket, some wide ribbon or a strip of paper, a punched snowflake, a metal snowflake, and a little holiday sticker on each one. On the card (part of the die set) I added a punched tab, where I added the name of the recipient. Here's some more pics....

And, a final shot of the whole slew of them... I actually ended up making a few more after these! Once I got going they were pretty easy, and cute! :)

Holiday Hugs, Noelle