Randomness and Eek It's Been a Month!

Well, this post isn't the second half of my strength wall post from May. I can't believe it's been that long since I posted. Eeeekers.
I have a short post tonight about my Pinterest-inspired volunteer gifts for my parents. I was very lucky to get the Roots of Empathy program this year. My ROE volunteer put in hours and hours of work on her own time. She delivered a wonderful program that both myself and the kids appreciated very much. So, for her I made this:

thumprint bugs from kids and grass from fingers

I painted a plain, inexpensive, largish terra cotta pot blue. It took four coats to cover and not look streaky. I then painted the little tray green to match the grass. Next, the I painted each kid's pointer finger with green paint and had them make a couple strands of grass. It's kinda hard to see but the grass is all around the bottom of the pot and is different lengths. Then I had each child put their thumb print on the "sky" part of the pot. Now, I am NOT a crafty person. But, I followed Ed Emberley's instructions and turned each thumb print into a bug. I included the kid's names beside their bug because they wanted me to. I then took the pot home and shellacked it three times. Inside and out. Tomorrow I am going to plant purple and yellow pansies inside the pot. Voila! A keepsake that I think our volunteer (who also happens to have a daughter in the class) will cherish. I hope.

I was inspired by this Pin:

from First Class Teacher. Please click on the picture to visit her lovely blog and post about this excellent craftivity.

Next, I  took individual pictures of each child in my class holding a letter that, when put together, spells out THANK YOU <3 GRADE 2/3. It turned out so cute! I absolutely adore this idea. Lots of finicky work but well worth it. It was also inspired by Pinterest.

I used a pink tablecloth as the backdrop for consistency (I taped it to my bookshelf) and had children hold up the letters. The font I used was Porky's and each letter was on a 8x11 piece of white paper. I then took each individual picture, cropped them and added them to MS Word as images. My next step was to make the document back into a picture, which I did using free software I downloaded from the Internet. Now I could send the picture to my local Shoppers Drugmart to be made into 6 cards (pictured above) for $5! I actually printed the photo for my ROE volunteer onto a 5x7 picture and had it framed but will use these cards for my other volunteers. This idea came from TUTUS and TURTLES.

And last, but not least, the volunteer gifts for the other three AMAZING moms/grandmoms who have helped out in my room this year. They have been wonderful, supportive and enthusiastic; I am going to miss them next year.

I bought three insulated eco cold drink cups (bpa free) from Winners. I was inspired by a pin from A MODERN TEACHER. She has made four really pretty labels to go with these types of cups. You can fill the cups with mints, lifesavers, even "Extra" gum OR tea...That got me to thinking...So, I have decided to make "Spiced Iced Tea" and put it in canning jars: one for each cup/volunteer. My directions on the mason jar will say "Go home, put your feet up, pour yourself a cup of iced tea, and RELAX" Inside the cup, I will include the ingredients to make the tea (ie tea bags, cinnamon sticks, cloves, etc). This way, my lovely volunteers can enjoy a cup of tea and then have the ingredients at hand to make more if desired!

PLEASE CLICK THE PHOTO FOR THE AMAZING POST FROM A MODERN TEACHER

Although time-consuming, these are really cost-effective, special gifts that I hope will be enjoyed by women who impacted our class in such a positive way this school year.

Whew! Well, that's it for now. See you soon and thanks so much for reading my post...I know it was long :)