Whisking everyone a merry Kissmas

I want to share with you the gift I gave both our neighbors and our church's Sunday School department teachers and aids.

I found this adorable idea on Pinterest, of course. 

(feel free to follow me on Pinterest by clicking on the button on my sidebar ----->) 

Its was created by a wonderful blog called making memories with your kids.

I LOVED the idea and quickly set to work gathering all the supplies to make SEVERAL of these....ummm I'm talking my kids and I whipped out roughly 23.  I gave them to all our Sunday School Teachers & Aids, and I made a different tag to give to all our neighbors.

I started the project by having my 6yr old help me stuff the whisks with kisses.

A word of advice this only works well with the small and medium sized whisks, but they fall out of the large whisk so you will need to take a handful, wrap them in plastic wrap, and then insert them into the large whisk.  Also be aware that not all of the kisses in the bag will make it into the whisks.  Somehow they make it into the helpers mouths, of course that's all part of the fun.

Next I took some red packaging ribbon.

And attached my tag to the loop at the top of the whisk.

This particular tag was the one made for our Neighbor gifts.  The tags made for the Sunday School teachers were different and more of a "Thank You" for all their hard work.  The tags can be made anyway you like to fit the recipient or you can use the printable I have included.

Here's a generic printable tag for you to use should you decide to do this next year

I printed mine in 3x5 inch tags, but you can configure yours to make any size you like.  

I hope you like this idea as much as I did, and as much as all the recipients did as well!

Have a great day and God Bless!

Peachy Teachers

I have seen so many cute teacher appreciation gifts on Pinterest, and I have been planning to do several for my girls teachers.  I just haven't remembered to pick up the supplies.  You know how that is.  You want to get it, you remember in the car on the way, forget to add it to the list, and when you finally get to the store you  forget.  All of a sudden after you are finished unloading the groceries, sitting in the drivers seat, and cranking the car it hits you like a bolt of lighting "Teachers!!!!  AAAARRRGGGHhhhhhhh!!!  Then you promise yourself you will get the stuff the NEXT time you go to the store.  Will the cycle ever be broken?!?!   Why yes it was. As I was dashing through the grocery store I went past the soft drinks, and as I passed the bagged candy a little bag of Peachieos called out to me "STOP!".  So. I. did. As soon as I saw them inspiration struck, and the cutest idea popped into my head for a teacher appreciation gift.  Other than the Peachieos, I had everything I needed at home to complete the simple gift.

So here is what I came up with, and SCORE I made a printable for you guys as well so you too can share the love with your kids teachers.

So yah, this is pretty self explanatory, but I am going to walk through it anyway...

I started with a small $1.29 bag of PeachieO's

Then I grabbed some previously received blue ribbon (don't you just love recycling useful items??) from my gift wrapping closet.

Since I had two gifts to make I used two pieces of ribbon per gift. I took the two pieces and tied them tightly around the bag about one third of the way down.  Then after punching a hole in the top corner of the tag I inserted just one of the ends of the ribbon through the hole.  Then picking up another end of the ribbon that's tied around the bag I tied another knot on top of the tag to secure it to the gift but keeping it still visible.  If I had put both strings on one side through the hole might have A: torn the tag or B: been too much ribbon curliness on top of the tag, and since the tag pretty much makes the whole point of the gift that wouldn't have been too great.

Oh, and I made up the tag as a printable to be included in this post as well (as I so sweetly mentioned in the teaser earlier).  Just right click then choose "save image as", saving it wherever you want to on your computer, and then you can print as many as your heart desires.

You will notice on mine that I actually added our family name at the bottom, but I was sweet enough to leave that off of this one.  Cause hey, if your name isn't Rogers it would be kinda weird for you to give to your teachers..right?  Right! So if you like you can edit this image with any image editing software, even one as simple as paint, and add your name to the bottom to personalize it. 

I hope you enjoyed my simple, on the fly, inspiration for a thrifty teachers gift (a buck twenty nine anyone??).  

Oh did I mention that they loved it?  My eldest daughters teacher actually shared the goodies with her class, but the youngest's teacher savored hers all by herself (smart lady who wants a bunch of sugared up Kindergartners??  not her, or me for that matter!).

If you have any ideas on this type of simple "Thank You" let me hear them.  I am always on the lookout for new ones, and I LOVE your comments!!!

Have a great day & God Bless!!

Home Sweet Home and last week's craft idea (catch up post #1)

Well, I just arrived home from a month of on-again off-again church camp in Montgomery.  Whew it is so nice to know I am home for good rather than a few days.  The only blah thought is that the car still has to be unloaded with a months worth of stuff.  ugghhh! 
Anyway I came up with SO many crafty ideas while on my month long-ish trip.  I implemented some which I will be playing catch up in sharing soon, and some I just cant wait to get to work on!!  I will be posting shortly how I made my T-Shirt dresses, Ho-Bo flowers, and twisty flowers.  I also have a few crafty ideas up my sleeve that I just cant wait to get started on.  Beware the crafty is coming out in me and will soon be exploding all over this page!!  In other news I got a new lens for my camera that I am over the moon about!  I also had a BALL taking pictures of my kids this past weekend for fathers day and for KII's second birthday pictures (better late than never! and he finally decided to co-operate!).  I did something cutesy that I stole from a friend of mine that I just HAVE to share with you.  I dressed them up in their dads shirts that suited his hobby's and profession.  Oh I LOVE them and so do many others who have seen them.  They actually turned out so much better than I expected. 
So that is my Craft idea for this past week.  Dress your kiddos up for whatever hobby someone loves (in that someones clothes if you can manage it) and snap a few pics of them doing it or playing with the instruments involved.  For example my kids were dressed in co-ordinating golf shirts that belong to my husband and sat on the floor playing with his golf clubs.  It wouldn't have to be for hubby though, perhaps your mom loves to bake with your children. So you would dress your kids up in an over sized apron put a bowl of flour or something in front of them with pans, rolling pins, measuring cups, or whatever and tell them to have fun.  While they are wrecking havoc and having a ball snap away.  I promise the look of joy on their faces and the cuteness factor will make any baking grandmother long to hang those pictures in her kitchen! 

Here Is one of the "Dressy" Fathers day pics I created.  I left a space in the photograph to add the quote, but you can do it any way you would like.

I would love to hear what you come up with!  Give me a comment!