Mothers Day Gift.

For my MIL's gift this year, I put together this portrait wall. She has 6 kids (hers, his and theirs), and they all have families of their own. I got tiered of seeing all the random 4x6's laying around that she gets so I thought this was something she would like. I mean after 81 years of birthdays, christmas', and 60 mothers days its hard to find something unique!

The saying at the top says "Family link to our past, bridge to our future" there is an 8x10 of each child with their families and a 5x7 for each grandchild and their families. Right now there are a lot of names showing, but hopefully in the coming months we can get these blank spots filled in!

We are trying something new! A Card Swap!!
You will be agreeing to make and send 5 cards (all the same or different, your choice) for each person that plays with us. So if 5 people play, you need to make 20 cards, and will get 20 new cards! See how great this is!!

There are a few simple steps, "rules" if you will, to play along:

1. Send an email to withandwithout AT gmail DOT com, indicating you want to join this swap. Include:Your Name
Your Address
Your blog address (if you have one)

2. Send the email no later than May 15. Swap partners will be sent out by May 18. You MUST mail all your swaps by June 13.

3. Have fun!!Feel free to invite anyone you'd like. We don't have a cut-off and would love to have as many participants as possible. We have created a Flickr group that we would love for you to join. This will enable us to share pictures of all the great cards we receive through the swap and have discussions about the group.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email or leave a comment! We look forward to swapping with you!

More Teacher stuff

As PTA president for our school, I get to help with the week long fun for the teachers! Here is our lay out.

Monday: Continental breakfast.
Tuesday: Gift Card to Walmart and these adorable paper clips.
Wednesday: Dinner in bag for them to take home.
Thursday: Hand lotion for the taking and a seated message in the library.
Friday: A 10x13 matte signed by all their students, with a class picture in the middle.

Teacher appreciation gifts.

We started with fortune cookies, sprinkles, white and milk chocolate.

Dip the fortune cookies in chocolate.

Sprinkle and drizzle till your hearts content.
Aren't they pretty?!

Put in cute $1 Chinese take out container, with custom made gift card that says something about how fortunate we are to have them as a teacher (wrapped in plastic so the chocolate doesn't get on it), tie cute school color ribbons around the handle, attach handmade card with letter from parents AND child saying how grateful we are, and WHALA.. home made, with cutisie side, much love, teacher gifts. :)

Stop me before I make more!

I love these! I love them! I have made 5 so far, I have plans for 2 more. They are so much fun and SO easy! I am getting better as I go, I think!

Brown swap.

For my swap I had Kim so it was easy to make personalized stuff. So I wanted to share what I did.

The jar was simple, left over vinyl I had with a rub on decal filled with only the best chocolate from See's.

The picture board was a kit I got from Ben Franklin's, I ordered part of the name in vinyl and the M is wood. This was fun and easy to make. The last I just loved the material so I made a baby doll blanket. Now that she has all the stuff I just had to share!

Thank yous.

I am always looking for great ways to say thank you. As President of our PTA I have a few people I wanted to do a special thanks for jobs they have endured all year long. I ordered a custom made Visa gift card for my daughter for her birthday and used a photo I had, and while brainstorming with myself (yes I do that a lot) I got the idea of creating an image to go on the cards myself.. So there it was. 2 hours later I made something I liked and ordered the cards. I think they turned out fantastic! I can't wait till April to pass them out. (yes, I do a lot of pre-planning!)