Teacher gifts and Gingerbread Makers

Boy am I glad the kids are on Christmas break finally. I really do enjoy having them home. The kids were very excited to give the teacher their gifts this year. Now I typically am not one to give much at Christmas to the teachers. I prefer to give them things on Teacher Appreciation Day and at the end of the school year. It isn't like I gave them all that much this year either. It's just that what I did was soooo time consuming. Well, not all of it. This little guy above really didn't take to long. It was a deal I found at Joann's. This is the backside. It is painted with chalkboard paint. The star is just something from Joann's as well that I glued on. Then I stamped the teacher's name in white paint with my Quirky Alphabet. The star that I stamped didn't turn out as well. TIP: When you stamp with paint make sure you clean your stamp off immediately. Also keep a wet paper towel on hand to wipe off mistakes quickly.

This is the front view. It has three compartments on the top to which we added sticky notepads. That bottom area is for kleenex. I found a red box of kleenex with stars on it. How perfect...not that you can really see it. But I knew it matched. My mom would be so proud. This was painted in a gloss red. I let my kids painted the box...mostly.
This little guy is what took me forever. I got this over on Papertrey's website. It is a template by Lauren Meader. She does some amazing things. Anyways, as cute as it is, I do not recommend it for MASS production unless you start early. Yes, the key word there is EARLY. What was I thinking? My brain does not work that way. I am " last minute Lucy" remember? So, while I got them done. It took me ALL night. Literally, no sleep. I will not do this next year to myself. Because what I ended up having time to put inside was a real let down to me. It is the partial ingredients and recipe for Cake In A Mug. Fun idea, but there was more room to add some goodies. It doesn't look all that hard to make. And it truly isn't. But what you have to remember is that you must cut out 2 of everything for one stocking. And my dumb printer will NOT print on SU cardstock. So, I had to trace and cut out. But I probably would do that anyways to save on cardstock. Here is what I used: Baja Breeze cardstock, Whisper white cardstock and ski slope SU designer paper from the Holiday Mini catalog. I think what really took me a while was this:
Yes, that is REAL stitching. But it really did make them look sooo much better. I know that they still needed something. But, honestly, after making 10 of them, I wasn't adding one more thing. Besides, it was time to get the kids up for school. I hope someone put them up on their mantle. I think they are mantle worthy. But next year, I am just going to BUY the teachers something:)

Sorry this turned out to be so Scrooge-ish. I am off to make more gifts. I still have quite a few and one that is giving me fits. I think I need to do some Yoga....."I love Christmas "will be my mantra today:) We have a Christmas party at my husband's work so that will be fun.

BTW I have to show some pictures of my kids. We did a gingerbread house last night. I have never made one before. My son REALLY wanted to do this. So I looked online for recipes. Then we were at the store getting some things and he saw a kit for making them. Being in a hurry, I just grabbed the box and didn't really look to see that the "house" is already cooked and erected for you. Can you say "yuck". But we put it together last night. They failed to put in the bag and piping tip. So we just slathered icing all over and the kids went to town with the candy.
As soon as I took the completed pictured they said, " Can we eat it now?" So, I let them. They both did a count down of "1,2,3" and then the thing was so hard they couldn't even break it. So, I had to help them.
Look how hard they are trying to chew:D Kids will eat anything with icing and candy I swear. However, later my daughter said, " That really wasn't that good." I promised that next year we would make a REAL gingerbread house.