Marker Monday - Handprint Calendar Gift Idea!

Warning!!! 

To my Mother and Grandmother, 

unless you want to ruin the surprise of your Christmas gifts STOP READING NOW!

okay.....

.....that should be enough warning for them! 

My wonderful friend Melissa who runs our playgroup had a big workshop day, 7 hours long, where she had different stations set up for us to do 12 different paint hand prints with our toddlers. After they were dry she cut them out, added details and and a poem, and we attached the hand prints onto a calendar for a Christmas gift for grandparents!! 

They turned out so well I just had to share. Maybe you have enough time to do something like this with your kids. Melissa was kind enough to set this up early for me because our family Christmas is next weekend in Indiana. 

This is the cover made from two handprints. 

The first page. I wasn't able to fit all three kids handprints on every page but we rotated so there were two per month. 

Then with every month Melissa put a matching poem.I won't put them all up because there are poems all over the Internet you could use but for example, January's says;

These aren't just five snowmen

as anyone can see.

I made them with my hand 

which is a part of me. 

Now each year when you trim the tree

You'll look back and recall 

when my hand was just this small. 

Melissa also had a lot of options if you didn't like the handprint she had for a particular month. There were also strawberries, octopus, firemen, ghosts, lobsters, and some that you could do with your feet too! 

Fish and flags for July?

 Yes, odd but my boys didn't want to do the flags! 

The apples turned out perfect if you only paint the palms. 

These are such a cool keepsake for grandparents, I can't wait to give it to them this weekend! This makes me wish I ran a daycare, wouldn't this be a cool thing to do with your kids all year long and surprise their parents with? 

What kind of homemade gifts are your kids making this year?

Marker Monday - Teacher Thank You Gift

My kids only have 3 1/2 more days of school! I can't believe how fast the school year has gone by! I know many schools though that still have many weeks to go. Hang in there.

In the meantime maybe you can make use of this project I made as a Thank You for the boys' kindergarten teacher. Last week I stumbled across these printable flashcards for Teacher Appreciation Week.

How cute! And Marlynn at Urban Bliss even provides a free download for your computer! Sweet!

I quickly downloaded them over the weekend but darn! I didn't have any more color ink in my printer. Hmm, what to do? I had to get these to Yip and Yap's teacher this week and didn't have time to run to Office Depot for more ink. But I printed it off on some card stock anyway.

Huh, shades of gray reminds me of a chalkboard. I can work with this.

So I scrounged through the craft cabinet and found some scrap booking papers.

I cut out an R and used it as a pattern. I left about 1/4" border around the card and added a tab on the right about 1/2" wide. Then I folded the scrap booking paper and traced and cut my pattern. So unfolded it looks like a tent, the yellow flower paper above, and folded it's a rectangle with a tab on the right.  I cut a total of 8 of these. Yes, there are only 7 letters in TEACHER but Marlynn added an 8th card with a message for the teacher.

Then I began to assemble. I took the first pattern and glued the two sides together. Glue sticks work the best.  

Then I placed the tab of the first square inside the second square and glued them together.

And I kept repeating this until I had all 8 lined up and glued together. (I used a ruler to check my straightness with every rectangle) 

The last rectangle I didn't need the tab so I simply cut it off.

While my rectangles were drying I cut out the flashcards right along the gray edge and then glued them on. One on each rectangle.

Once everything was dry I folded between the letters and stood it up like an accordion.

For the final touch I folded it all up and wrapped it with a ribbon.

I would have liked to have printed this off in color but I think it turned out nicely in gray scale. Hopefully the boys' teacher doesn't mind a little homemade gift as a thank you for all the wonderful things she's done this year.

Hope the end of your school year is pleasant and comes quickly!