It is that time of the year where you aren’t thinking about popsicles, swimming in the pool, or even sleeping in anymore. Gears have changed and we can’t stop thinking about pencils, notebooks, backpacks, sack lunches, and just how well our kiddos are going to do in their new classes. I find the beginning of the year can be a bit overwhelming for everyone; parents, kiddos, and teachers. To ease this burden a little bit I’ve come up with a few first day of school traditions. The two traditions I’m going to show you today are fun little hybrid gifts, one for your kiddo{s} and one for their teacher{s}.
For the kiddo’s it is a first day of school survival kit. I have given one of these to my daughter each year since she began school. It is a fun little gift she looks forward to, and helps her get excited about the school year. One cool thing about this gift is that even if school has started you could still assemble one and give it to your child. They still have a long year of “surviving” school!
My school survival kits have varied from year to year. This year I used a sliding pencil case as the container. Then using Teacher’s Pet by Gina Miller, I created a fun little cover with my daughter’s name on it. I printed this out on presentation paper and cut it out. I then used my dot glue runner to apply adhesive to the back and placed it on the pencil case. Afterwards I made sure to modge podge over the label so that it would stay put and not peel away as the year goes on. Inside I included a few fun little trinkets that you can see in the photos below.
Inside shot of the pencil case of how it all fits.
And here is a better view of everything inside.
Next up is a gift for the teachers. In my past I was a teacher, and I know just how crazy those first few days of school can be. As a first year teacher a sweet student brought in a gift thanking me for being her teacher that year. I was touched, and vowed that when I had children I would do the same for their teachers. So each year I come up with something to give my daughters teachers. My daughter picks out what she wants to give and we work together on making it. This year she went ultra simple and asked to give her teacher these decorated sticky notes. Here is a quick run through of how these are made:
1. In photoshop create a shape that is 3.25 in X 7.75 in. Fill in the shape using whatever digital patterned paper you desire. For mine I again used Teacher’s Pet by Gina Miller. You’ll notice on the screen shot that I have two shapes of the same paper, that is just because I plan on giving several of these to my daughter’s teacher and didn’t want to waste paper. You can certainly only print out one if you want.
2. Cut out your paper so that you have a strip of patterned paper.
3. Flip your paper over to the white side. The next part sounds tricky but really isn’t. You are going to score your paper at different intervals. Start from the left and work your way to the right. The intervals are as follows: 3 1/8 in., 3/8 in, 3 1/8 in, 3/8 in. At the end 3/4 in should be left over. If this is a bit confusing, do what I did and first mark it out on the paper before scoring. It is always easy to erase a pencil mark! If you look close you can even see my tick marks in the picture below.
4. On the back of your sticky notes apply an adhesive to glue your sticky note pad to the paper. Go ahead, line everything up and place the pad on the paper in the second large square.
5. At this point you have a choice to make. You can make some form of a clasp to keep the sides together or not. I chose to not create one because I know that a teacher doesn’t have time to be fussing with a clasp when they want to write a quick note. This how my finished project looks when it is all folded up. Won’t that look nice on a teacher’s desk?! Just a little something to brighten it up! My daughter is already so excited to take this to her teacher on Monday!
Both of these projects took me about 30 mins from start to finish. So quick and easy! I hope this has inspired you to create some of your own First Day of School traditions. For more inspirational ideas be sure and check out The LilyPad on Pinterest. There are some really fun back to school ideas pinned there!
Jewelle
{aka mrspotts}
Stacia says
I love the cute pencil case! It would fit nicely in their backpack.