Well, it's that time of year again- the end of the school year and the pressure of getting teacher gifts. I know, there shouldn't be pressure. I know the end is coming, same time every year, but somehow I always seem to leave it until the last possible minute. As a matter of fact, Emily's last day was Monday with the all school picnic on Wednesday and I went with no teacher gifts! Fortunately, the daughter of one teacher babysits for us so I can send her gift home with her daughter. Emily is going to some Tuesday Kids Club days this summer with the other 2 teachers so I can deliver those too.

I knew I wanted to do note cards and looked around to see what cards I thought matched each teacher. This is what I ended up with (so far!).

Miss M is a younger girl- in her 20s I think. I wanted something fun so this is the layout I picked:



I did 5 cards of each color and decorated the envelopes too. I love how they turned out!


Mrs. M, I don't know, I just picture her as kind of a flowery, traditional kind of girl. I made these cards with a class (didn't do the monogramming though) after I found them on another demonstrator's blog- she used them to showcase the new Stampin' Up! In Colors. I tried several different things on the scallop behind the letter and finally used the Fine Flourish background stamp and created my own DSP (designer series paper). The stamp pattern has light lines and I was able to tie in the In Colors with the monogrammed piece. I love these! I will totally make them again!


Since there are 5 In Colors, she got 2 of each color.

So anyone who knows me, probably knows how I feel about treat bags. You know, the bags kids get when going to a party- birthday or whatever- usually filled with candy and little toys. Yea, I hate them.

Emily's "summer birthday" was last Friday at school. Since school was out for the year before her birthday, she got assigned an earlier day to celebrate her summer birthday. She got to be person of the day, line leader, ring the clean up bell and bring in snack. Due to my feelings about treat bags, she was not going to take them.

We went into Meijer to do some grocery shopping and walked right by the flower seed packets. I thought: What a FABULOUS idea! Give all the kids a seed packet, they can plant them and watch them grow. No cheap toys to break and wind up polluting our environment in the dump and no candy to hype them up and rot their teeth. I, of course, couldn't just give the packets to the kids, I had to make them pretty so this is what I came up with:



I embossed a 4x5 sheet of cardstock, inked stamp with markers then punched out. I used the new Blossom Bouquet Triple Layer Punch for the flower behind the Happy Birthday circle. I attached the seed packet to the back with glue dots. I got a lot of positive feedback from people about how much the kids liked them. Yay!!!!

New Triple Layer Punch

There are 2 new punches in the new Stampin' Up! mini catalog. I bought this one and it's so cool! If you look on the side of the punch, it shows you where to move the lever to get the shape you want and the flowers next to it are what comes out. Really cute and fun way to dress up anything involving paper and it's SO easy! This one is called the Blossom Bouquet Triple Layer Punch. The other one is the Doily Triple Layer Punch. I just got the Doily in the mail today so I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.



Some little person that I know has a birthday at the end of the month. These are the party invites. Um, CUTE! and so easy!