Teacher Appreciation Gifts 2015

It's official! Yesterday was the last day of school and my little guy was super excited.


Every year I try to make something creative for my son's teachers. Last year, his special ed teacher received a Brown Bear quilt since she was pregnant toward the end of the school year. The assistant teacher and speech therapist both got mug rugs (with mugs and goodies) and luggage handle covers.

This year, though, I had to make a LOT of gifts. My son was enrolled into 2 PreK classes - his morning class was a standard class, and his afternoon class was a special ed class specifically for children with developmental delays. Each class had 2 teachers and my son was also receiving speech therapy twice a week from a speech pathologist. So that was 5 gifts I needed to make.

My original intention was to make the 2 primary teachers a basket and the 2 assistant teachers and speech therapist tote bags. Well, it didn't exactly work out that way. I first made a tote bag, thinking it was going to be super quick and easy but it wasn't because of making a patchwork exterior, quilting the pieces, and then using a stiffer fusible interfacing for the lining.


Don't get me wrong, I liked how it turned out but I was running out of time and needed to whip up 2 more of these. I decided to tackle the 1-hour basket pattern that I'd been saving and while it took me a bit longer than 1 hour, I fell in love with them. By cutting out all of my fabrics and thermolam interfacing ahead of time, I got these babies put together in record time and I just loved how they turned out! So my plan changed to all of the teachers getting baskets and the speech therapist getting the tote bag.

Here's the first basket that I made, with some abstract owls.


Here's the second one, with some fun mushroom fabric and bright orange polkadots (man, I love me some polkadots!)


I didn't take individual photos of the last 2, but both assistant teachers said that their favorite color was blue so these went to them.


I filled them with some gifts especially for their classrooms for next year (puzzles, a few new books, etc), chocolates, and some homemade vanilla!


All of the teachers really loved the gifts and I can't wait to make some more baskets. They're going to be my go-to gift from now on.

Comments

  1. What lovely and thoughtful gifts, Diana. I love that you gifted items that will be useful in the classroom next year. :)

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  2. those look awesome, I've been wanting to try that pattern, but just haven't done it yet.

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  3. These are so lovely and I amsure very much appreciated by the teachers. .

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  4. Yes I too would be delighted with either or both the bag or bin, mind you I have the pattern for the bin so I suppose I will just have to make my own. Happy school holdays

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  5. The little baskets are so cute!! I really love the mushroom print - great fabric choices!

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  6. Wow! One child and five teachers! The bags and baskets alone are pretty snazzy - how generous of you to fill them with goodies too.

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  7. Wow, you really really put a lot of thought, time and effort into these gifts. Those teachers should be blown away by these gifts. I know I would have been! Love those pails...gotta make some!

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  8. That is awesome, you are more than welcome to move to New England and he can be in my 7th grade classroom! LOL, I can see why you may like the warmer weather! For sure the teachers LOVED those gifts, I would too :)

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