Teacher Gifts!

So I know first hand how hard teachers work, and while I know they do what they do not for thanks, I am so grateful to have been blessed with amazing people working with my children. The truth is that during the school year they are with my children during the day more than I am and it is hard to put a price on that...

I like to always get teachers gift cards- Target has been my store of choice lately because they have everything! I figure everyone can get something at Target, right? And though we're talking about lowly teachers (Jeff & I) buying gift cards (for four kids which in this case happens to equal 6 teachers!) we wouldn't have it any other way.

I like to try to give gift cards in a clever way, and to be honest, this is also coming from my children, so rather than just hand their teacher a card- something 'tangible' makes more sense to them. Joe and Al both said that they wanted to give their teachers flowers- and so I came up with something along those lines...

Because I am a teacher, I know that no idea is purely new- good ideas are all stolen- or 'tweaked' to make them one's own. In cups in our office are pens with silk flowers on them. They're cute and no one steals pens from our office. I started thinking and got the idea of making some pens for the teachers and putting them in small terra cotta pots along with the gift card.

At first I was going to write their names on the pot- or do some sort of cutesy quote- or painting- but then I decided against it. I wasn't sure if they would want to take it home... use it at school... etc- so I just left the pots blank. It took me no time at all to whip these babies up. They were so easy. I just needed pots, rocks (to hold the 'flowers' in place, silk flowers, floral stem-wrap tape and of course the pens. (and wire cutters to cut the flowers)

I think that they turned out really cute and because I couldn't stop throwing cutesy quotes around in my head, I used a stem that had been cut, and just wrote a little note that on one side said, "Thanks for helping (insert one of the Doran kids' names here) bloom" and on the other side signed mine and Jeff's names (though let's face it- this was all MY idea!) The room mom in my class and one of my former first graders- now going off to COLLEGE will also get one for all their help in MY classroom!

I hope that they like them- and if not, they'll have a couple pens and more importantly some bucks to spend at Target. (Everyone loves Target right??) I may just have to make one of these for our house... and maybe buy different types of flowers for the different seasons... uh oh- the wheels are turning...