Thank You Gifts!

Do you get thank you gifts for your resource teachers?

I teach at a Catholic school, and our public school district sends over resource teachers for us. This year I have students who see a Title I reading interventionist and a speech-language pathologist.

I love both of them very much, but I especially appreciate our reading specialist. She just retired last year from teaching third grade for over 30 years! She is a fantastic teacher, super positive and helpful (especially since I'm only a first year teacher), and I really feel like she went above and beyond for the students in her care this year. She was only hired in January to work with our students, but she jumped right in and the kids made huge progress with our classroom reading instruction combined with her individualized instruction.

Anyway, to thank her for her dedication, my BTF and I threw together a fun little thank you gift that was inspired by Pinterest!

                                                         Source: therachelberryblog.com via Jill on Pinterest

And here is my interpretation!

I was sold as soon as I saw the zebra print towel! Love.

Love Jar

I realize that Valentine's Day has come and gone, but I am a slowpoke and just finished my Valentine's Day gift for my boyfriend today!

Before I begin, let me just say that I am really interested in crafting. I am interested in ideas and buying all the things I will need. I am also interested in beginning projects. After that... not so much. My cousins, Kelley and Lisa, can attest to this. I have so much stuff sitting around that I NEEDED for whatever reason. Sigh.

But I actually finished something, so go me!

This is the love jar! I wrote out 30ish nice things about my boyfriend, printed them out, and folded little fortune cookies to house them. I got this idea from Chrissy and then when I looked up "love jars" on Google, I saw the fortune cookies and I just HAD to do it. I have had all the stuff for a week and just now I did it. Story of my life.

I sort of followed the directions I found at Better Way Moms but I am way more lazy than that person so I adapted the directions to fit my needs and maybe yours! I made my own step by step pictures if you are interested!

1. I traced my circles. I used 12x12 scrapbook paper. I used a CD to make 2 big circles on each paper and then I used a cup to trace 4-5 small circles which were about 3.25 inches in diameter. 

2. Then I ripped off a strip of double-sided tape. No specific size... I sort of used the premarked lines on the tape to guide me but I was not religious about this. I cut it in half lengthwise. In the picture you can see that I put the two pieces of tape on the top part of the wrong side of the circle. I folded one of my little messages in half and laid it in there.

3. I had the sticky side and unsticky side meet. I did not crease at all.

4. Then, like so, I held two fingers on either side and just shoved the middle in. Other places told me to make a crease so I could tell where the middle was. I just winged it (wung it?). I think the imperfections will make it special.... haha.

5. Then you will have a little fortune cookie! This one actually looks pretty good but believe me, most of them were off centered and one side was bigger than the other. Whatevs.

 6. However, it will not stay fortune cookie-like unless you stick it together. I tore off a tinier piece of double-sided tape and stuck it close to the fold on the bottom part. I don't think you can see it in this picture. But it is there!

 7. Then I held it together. I didn't crunch it or crush it together... I just held it together and looked at Pinterest for a minute. Haha!

And that's it!! It was actually pretty easy and semi-fun once I got started. You could use this for many purposes! Birthday gifts, anniversary, you know.

So far they are sticking together... nothing is popping apart or anything! Good old double-sided tape. If you choose to do this, you might want to cut some practice ones. My brother and I played around with them and I got super frustrated for a while when they didn't look perfect. Then I let go and now I am happy!