Saturday, March 30, 2013

Easter Egg Fun!

Each year I feel challenged to "one-up" myself from the year before in egg-decorating creativity...I feel like I'm nearly maxed out at this point, but I shall press on...here are some examples of the years past, I always end up using the Paas dying kit or something similar for my coloring, but love to get creative with the decorating! 

This particular year I used Painter's Tape(or "Frog Tape") and an Exacto knife to cut out the shapes I wanted and placed them on the hard-boiled egg once they cooled-the paint does not stick as well after boiling and storing in the refrigerator, they tend to sweat!


This year I helped my Grandmother with her eggs, we have a VERY large family and she makes an egg for every.single. person. We're talking her children, their spouses, grandchildren and their spouses(or semi-serious boyfriend/girlfriend), great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren! That's a lot of names, so I decided to take a shortcut and buy some scrapbooking letter stickers instead-I must say, I was very pleased with the results! I would recommend scrapbook stickers over any other type of sticker or tape, they did not allow for any bleeding at all!

Last year, I had a creativity roadblock...so I focused on pretty solids and took some creative pictures instead! ;)

These eggs are some of my favorites, no dyeing required, just a good ol' Sharpie Color Marker and let your creative mind go wild! I had a blast decorating these, and if it weren't for our two little girls wanting to dye eggs, I would just do this every year!





Sunday, March 24, 2013

Teacher Appreciation Week!

Teacher Appreciation Week 2013 is May 6-10th
Teacher Appreciation Day 2013 is May 7th

It's a well known fact that Teacher's are highly under-appreciated, who better to change that than ourselves as parents? "Thank You" is such a simple thing to say, appreciation is so easy to show, if you're at a loss for ideas, feel free to use some of these! The teachers at our school absolutely loved them! It is a great week to get super crafty and come up with some fun ideas to show your appreciation! Last year, another parent and myself decided not just to show our appreciation for our child's individual teacher, but for every teacher in our school, so we chose a simple theme for each day of Teacher Appreciate Week and put a (very inexpensive) surprise in the Teacher's Lounge each day for them! I only have pictures of a few of them, but you'll get the idea! We then chose to celebrate our child's individual teacher on Teacher Appreciation Day itself, giving them a special gift that the other teachers did not share.

Day 1: Homemade Muffins!
We got a little carried away and made 3 different flavors, Mixed Berry, Strawberry, and Banana. (*If you're not Susie Homemaker, store-bought or Panera will work as well, but will probably be much more expensive, Muffins are super simple to make, just look for an easy recipe!) The teachers were so thankful that they were not only thought of, but had something homemade just for them! They were a huge hit and every single one was gone by the end of the day!

Day 2: Play on Words Goodies!
We scoured the internet for silly sayings with Candy names in them and made up some of our own, too! The teachers all got a kick out of them and enjoyed having quick snacks on hand when they stopped in the lounge throughout the day! (Also all gone when we picked up the tray at the end of the day!)

Day 3: Cupcakes!
These were the most time-consuming because we handmade all of the marshmallow fondant decorations to go on top, they told us their favorites were the "F" grades! ;)


Day 4: Apples for Teachers!
A healthy snack and a play on the old "Apple for Teacher".
We also took in a cooler filled with bottled water because our school has no air conditioning!

Day 5: Teacher Appreciation Day-Individual Teacher Gift!
A cheap, run of the mill planter with chalkboard paint and a handwritten message from the student, we chose to plant Jade because it is very low-maintenance and attractive! We also included a Starbucks gift card!

We also typed up a very nice thank-you note to all of the teachers, telling them what a great job they are doing and how much it means to us that they do everything in their power to give our children a great education-and do you know how awesome these teachers are? They took that note and wrote extremely nice "Thank you's" to us all over it for all the nice things we did! (A few teachers saw us sneaking these things in in the mornings before school, but for most of them it was anonymous-we were not looking for any type of recognition and if we could have pulled it off without anyone seeing us, we would have!) I thought that was pretty cool!

Other Ideas to fill your Days: