Sorry for my absence, I've been distracted by life :) This past year seems to have been the year where all of our teeth decided to break down. Lately, it's been mine that have been giving me trouble. I suspect it will all get taken care of in due time but while I'm in the middle of things I decided to distract myself by showing off the Christmas gifts I've made for the kids' teachers.
I've mentioned before that I don't give many homemade gifts, mostly because I feel like most people wouldn't necessarily like getting them (they're expecting the latest Wii or Kindle or something else of the high-tech and mucho expensivo variety). Personally, I buy pretty much all my own gifts because then I know I'll get exactly what I want :) My husband is the same so this works for us even though my mom is beside herself over our "un-romantic" ways. Sorry, mom :)
Anyway. Teachers can't defend themselves from homemade gifts and they probably wouldn't think of complaining even if they were unhappy with their loot. I usually go for something cheap but practical and hopefully different from all the other treats, mugs, pencils and whatnots they usually get. I tell myself that even if the gift may not be that interesting to them at least they'll know that a lot of thought and time went into making their gift = they're important.
This time I used some of the leftover fleece from the kids' blankets to make little heart shaped hand warmers. So simple and virtually free. (I think I got the idea from here, they certainly look similar enough).
1. First I cut out my heart shapes with the help of a free handed template and sewed them together, right sides facing, leaving a little space open to add the filling.
2. Turned them inside out and stuffed them to the gills with rice mixed with some Tangerine essential oil (smells good when you heat them up) and sewed them shut by hand.
3. The cross stitching around the seams strengthens the seams and adds a sweet detail.
4. Simple instructions were printed on brown gift wrap paper, cut into strips and stapled into a "sleeve" for the hearts.
5. Classy scrapbook papers were turned into custom pillow boxes with the help of this tutorial and the sleeved hearts were slid into their boxes.
6. Standard gift bows and some tags I had on hand complete the look I was going for. The tags will be personalized to each teacher, of course. :)
Ready to be gifted! Love the classy, girly look and my daughter especially will be ecstatic to give such a pretty gift to her teacher although my son seemed pretty excited as well :) And hopefully the teachers will be happy with their gifts although I might never know :)
By the way, if it looks like I have a split personality on my blog from now on it's because the other day when I tried to upload some pics to the blog Blogger informed me I was out of space. Meaning they wanted me to buy more storage space, or else. Blogging is but a small hobby of mine and I didn't want to have any expenses going with it so I decided to enter into the world of split personalities.
This blog now has two contributors but they are both part of a whole that is the sum total of me, still :). A new free account enabled me to keep blogging until this one runs out of space. It's a hassle and it looks like I'm two people but, you know, it's free. Hope it doesn't bother you guys too much that I have a split personality :) I'm slowly adjusting to it myself.