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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

From the Mail Bag....


Any good ideas for Father's Day gifts for the men in my ward?
Heather C.


One year I was in charge of the Father's Day gifts in our ward.
(On Mother's day and Father's Day they give something to the men and women in the congregation)

This is what we did.

  • Clear Pocket Protector. We were a bit last minute but if you got these printed with Happy Father's day it would be darling! You can find these for about $.40 each.
  • A ball point pen
  • A Sugar Daddy large sucker
Then with a sticker (poem written by Stacy{s})
Hip, Hip
hooray, Today is Father's day.
For all the things you do for us, without complaining, without a fuss.

As our ward we would like to say,
Have a "Sugar daddy" day. Happy Fathers Day

Lucky Jeff get's a new one of these every year with photos, bells and lot's of pom poms.

For the best Father there can be no real tie.


Idea posted from Shauna, such a great idea!

Several year ago, we started the homemade tie tradition for our entire church congregation. The Saturday before Fathers Day, they have an Activity Day specifically to make the ties. On Fathers Day, all the men are great sports and wear them. Ties are made for every man, children or not. Some wear 3-4 ties, one from each child or wear the previous years' when their children grow up, etc. It has been a very fun tradition and continues to grow. Some of the ties even have dates on them. Each year, there is something different to add to the decorations. Lots of laughs and fun memories. With my older children grown and gone,when they called home today, they asked about all the ties at church today and what they looked like, etc.

.................................................................
I was wondering if you had any good ideas
for an end of the school year teacher present?

Rachael R.

I was telling some girls at the blog party that I feel I need to come up with a new Teacher gift just to push my creativity then I think, WHY? I have done this for 4 years now and just love making it and watching the teacher open it.
It is a 100 dollars bound together like a notepad and in between each page is a question that is answered about the teacher. The book is "100 things we love about Mrs. Smith"
It is worth making seriously just to see the reaction of the teacher when they sit and read the questions. If you are still not convinced read about some other fans of the project. (let me know if you post about it, this will be the first chapter in my book someday - ha!)
Cara did it!
Andrea did it!


But last year I think I actually did improve the idea by doing two things. One adding the premade vellum quotes and put them in between the money and questions. It was really great. You can buy those at and craft store.
and two... when I took the questions and answers and bound them in a book and gave them to the principal. I mean seriously what better gift can you give the teacher than to let their boss know how awesome you think they are.I then put it in a plastic popcorn bucket ($1 store) with some candy, popcorn and a blockbuster gift certificate. Don't forget the Principal!

Then since I feel like I have to give everyone a gift I do the gumball jars. Even the bus driver got one!

I have done these for years but now the seem to be everywhere to buy if you don't want to make them.
I buy my jars at Wal-mart or a thrift store (wash out well) The gum at Sam's club, the ribbon - duh the ribbon outlet. But pre outlet i bought the polka dot ribbon at Walmart.
With the laminated tag that reads...
This year we are also doing a memory quilt with hand drawn pictures for the kids. I DID NOT make the quilt but bought it pre made.
Here are two links one to making it with now sewing and one to buy it. I bought the teacher theme. It is done, took one day, fast and great bang for the buck!

no sew memory quilt
Premade memory quilt
One year for AK's preschool teacher I had each student bring in a quarter yard of fabric that represented them. Then I embroidered each child's name on the fabric and made a reversible bag. The inside was a darling black and white plaid with a big chunky monogram on it. I can't believe this is the only photo I took. Seeing her face when she opened it was just awesome. All of us parents and her were crying.
One year I monogrammed these bags for the entire office staff and principal.
This was also a fun surprise.but while i am on the subject of end of the year, don't forget to make the last day of school t-shirt. They are so fun. (this will chapter two in my book)
So I hope this answers some questions. But since I know of you out there have even more ideas feel free to share...

Great teacher gifts?
great father's day ideas?

and since I am a firm believer in the power of bribes and since I went to the ribbon outlet today I will pick someone on Saturday to send some yummy ribbon to just for sharing your ideas.

40 comments:

denise @ little ant design said...

I love coming to your blog and reading all your ideas. You are a fountain of creativity - thanks for sharing it with all of us.

Mrs. McDaniel said...

I did the gumball jars last year for my daughters preschool. They loved them. I"m going to do them again for the staff at our school this year but not for everyone~so each year someone different will get one. :) I'm doing the heidi swapp gift for the end of year gift. it's a beach towel with a magazine & some sunscreen but I think I"m going to do cheap flip flops instead of sunscreen.

Lene said...

The homemade ties for men of the ward - how awesome.
I bow down to your creativity and always steal - oops I mean borrow my ideas from others. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. The one thing I try to do with teacher's gifts is to include a school picture of my kidlet on the card.

Lene said...

BTW - I loved your comment on Jill's blog. You are such an awesome friend!

Charity said...

I am just finishing up the end of the year school gifts...my kids each have 2 teachers due to being in the spanish immersion program, so it's been a bit of work, but well worth it. I also copied all the questions and answers and put them in a book for all the children to take home complete with pictures I have taken of all the kids and a classroom picture as well (I took 2 class pictures, one serious and one goofy)

This year in addition to your fabulous money books (which took me like 5 banks to find crisp money...) we had each of the kids put their thumb prints on a watering can, which we turned into the bodies of different bugs and am including a nice plant with the watering can, I used this especially for the aides in each classroom as well as the room mother...

For fathers day we take mini bags of M&M's, tie ribbon in the middle, seperating it into 2 halves so it looks like a bow tie and have each father wear it around their neck...some do, some don't...

For all the staff my hubby works with in the ER, at Christmas everyone got personalized scrub tops, with the name and logo of the hospital on it... (not my idea but a great one....)

For baby showers/bridal showers, I like to do a personalized gift that everyone contributes to the last one that I did we all contributed to make personalized "special day" plates for the bride and groom..everyone contributed an idea and I fired them in my kiln so they could have them forever...or at least until they break

I have a million ideas, but these are the ones that I have currently done in the past couple of months or so...

Thanks for all the great ideas!!!

My name is Andrea said...

you make me tired. seriously, reading that made me feel totally overwhelmed and guilty! i am amazed by you and your talent and your generosity! when i grow up i want to be you!

Wendi said...

I also loved your sweet comments to Jill.

Thanks for the ideas. They are fabulous. One other idea, not really creative: when I taught school someone gave me a gift card to JC Penney and I loved it because it was a present for a "person" not just a "teacher." Although I loved getting all the teacher trinkets too.

Bugg's mama said...

For the teacher - a box of Lucky Charms wrapped in cellophane, of course! "I am so lucky to have had such a charming teacher this year!"

I love the M&M bowtie idea, Charity!

Thanks for your fun ideas, Kristi!
~BREE~

Elaine said...

I love the great ideas. I'm thinking I'm going to do the bubble gum jars. As far as Father's Day goes, in one ward I was in they gave the dads a package of microwave popcorn and a can of root beer in a cute cellophane bag with a tag that said, "Pop Pop, Fizz Fizz, You're the Greatest Dad there is!" I've also used this for teacher gifts, especially for male teachers.

andrea said...

The money book is seriously the greatest idea ever. I loved doing it last year. The other day Jonah (5th grade) was wearing a white t-shirt and wanted to take a marker to school so everyone could sign it. I remembered AK's t-shirt that you do every year and told him about it. He was so excited. Thanks for all the AMAZING ideas.

Megan said...

I love your blog! I am in Young Womens in my ward and for Fathers day we are BE-dazzling some ties!But you already had that idea?! You could do something with Big Hunk candy bars? Good luck!

PS you are an amazing mom! how do you find the time?

wende said...

patsy and i some other moms are doing the $100 books for our FANTASTIC sixth grade teachers and i can't wait -the kids have already written the funniest things! i took your advise at the blog party though and pre-cut the paper and included them in the envelope so that i don't have to type everything later. i'm going to be sad to not have everything all typed neat in a cute font but i think that the kids' handwriting will be great too.

i stole the gumball idea for allie's girlfriends for christmas this year and they were a huge hit!

one of my favorite teacher gifts to give is my favorite read of the year with a diet coke and some chocolate. i always include a note about all the stories they read and now to take a break this summer and read a grown-up story. one year i gave "the secret life of bees" which i loved, with a loaf of honey wheat bread from great harvest and a honey bear. they went nuts over this!

thanks so much for sharing your ideas, seriously, thinking of stuff is the always the hardest part and i am a BIG time believer in doing something awesome for the people that spend all day every day shaping the minds of our little people. people that influencial in our children's lives deserve the best thank you we can give! so thanks!

Charity said...

By the way....I would love for a tutorial on how to make those fabulous fabric tissue holders....I know, one more thing you do....where to you ever find the time????

Kim Sue said...

teachers: Doodlebugs Stationery, of course! My sister sets me up. She rocks! We did it for Christmas this year.

fathers: We like to do a day with Dad gift. Coupons for different things like a quiet hour in the recliner, picnic lunch, tickets to a movie, etc.

Serendipity said...

I can't believe it is already the end of the school year! Fun to see all of your ideas...

We make end of the year shirts as well. Our variation is:
front: (Teacher's name) thanks for a great year! back:(grade for next year) here I come!

I've used your gumball idea, and the teachers loved it!

We also have a 'Teacher Appreciation Celebration' at our house each year -- (we pass out the invited during teacher appreciation week...) This is our favorite thing to do for all our teachers -- school, music, church, etc. We'll be having ours this Saturday...

We tried a new thing this year for teachers -- we gave them a cookie of the month club certificate for Christmas...This has been a lot of fun too...

Thanks for always taking the time to inspire creativity and share all of the ideas you gather! I love all of the comments that have been shared as well! So many creative gals!

There will be some very happy teachers out there during the next few weeks! :)

Shauna said...

Last year, I used DAD'S Rootbeer with balloons attached as centerpieces at Church. After Church, our Congregation has a tradition of serving the men Homemade Cinnamon Rolls and Milk after the meetings (while they are all wearing their decorated ties)
I also gave bottles of DAD's Rootbeer wiht Balloons attached and a note to the Dad's in our life.
I blogged about it, I will have to post the link.

Christina said...

this year i designed a tile with the vinyl lettering that has an apple in the middle with Mrs. King class 2007-2008 then i have ALL the children's names going around the apple...SO CUTE! lauralee is working on it now..

Kristi said...

up here in Canada smarties are like m&m's- one year I bought the big bags of smarties, and made a tag saying thanks for helping me become a smartie. then another year did the same, but with sharpies- bought the huge pack, then divided them up and wrapped them with ribbon and a tag saying thanks for helping me become a sharpie! I love the dollar book idea, but we have dollar coins up here!

kelly said...

as always... great ideas! i love all the father's day ones. here in our house we are already busy preparing our own special tie! yipee!

Deb said...

Teacher idea=our class gave her a gift certificate for a pedicure!

Dad's idea=make him an appetizer for lunch. take a sliced piece of cheese, cut it into the shape of a tie, put it on those long crisp crackers-decorate with mustard or peppers or pepperoni

Kristi said...

Great ideas, all of them. I love the gum ball jar, it is so colorful!

Any idea of a gift to whip up in less than 24 hours for a dance teacher? I should be able to figure this out, I am a dance teacher myself...

Kristi

Jennifer (mom of four) said...

I went to Sams today and they do not have the gumballs anymore. I could special order them but they did not know when they would be here. So I went to Walmart and got the smaller ones. I put them in clear bags and tied them with cute wide polka dot ribbon.

I gave monogrammed keychains to all the kids teachers last week for Teacher Appreciation. They loved them. Katherine has one male teacher and I made him a notepad with the school logo and said "A note from Mr. Logan"

Personalized clipboards is also something I have done. The teachers always love having something to make their lists on.

All of these things are on my J Design blog.

Thanks for the great ideas Kristi!!

Lauralee said...

love your dollar book idea.. where did your links go to all your holiday ideas? I was looking for baby shower ideas and thought.. surely kristi will have that on her side bar???

your amazing!
love your encouragement to jill

patsy said...

In our ward the YW bake cinnamon rolls and give them to all the men & boys during priesthood opening exercises. They Just use the rhodes ones from Costco. It makes the whole church smell so good.
You are the best for sharing your ideas! thank you, thank you. You really NEED to write a book- it would be a best seller!!!!

For father's day every year my kids make & illustrate a little booklet (paper stapled together) of things they love about their grandpa. They are really cute! We send them with a gift card to DQ since they both love ice cream & we live too far away to visit often enough.

Juli said...

Seriously, write a book, then I can stop taking notes and just look your ideas up. You're the best!

Liz said...

I love all the ideas that have been posted already!

I don't know how original this idea is, but it is what we did one year for Lindsey's teacher. I went to Borders and found a cute picture book about teachers or students (I can't even remember the name of the book, lame I know) and then we wrote a note to her teacher in it and gave that to her.

Here is a cool idea for Father's Day. I am borrowing it from what the YM did for the Mom's in our ward last year and this year. They made a little video asking the kids questions about their special memories of their moms, what their mom would do if she had a million dollars, what she'd pack if she was a pioneer, what Hollywood celebrity she'd marry (this was really funny!). Anyway you could do this for the Dads instead. Then they served us strawberry shortcake and yummy drinks while reading poems that they had written. THe table centerpieces were flowerpots that had been painted by the primary kids and everyone got one. It was really nice.

Moore Family said...

Since I just de-lurked on the other post, I may as well add my two cents in here as well. :)

I love gift card bouquets for teacher gifts. The families can donate money or gift cards, then you put all the different cards on floral card pics (the little plastic "fork" that holds the card when you get flowers) and arrange them in a cute planter with a ribbon tied around them. Always a hit!

Kristy said...

Thanks for the great ideas. I am looking for ideas for Father's Day for Primary already! These are way cute. Now can you write my Primary Program.....just kidding!!!

Karrie said...

for Father's Day in our ward we have all the primary kids bring a dozen cookies to churhch and then they decorate bags and we put an assortment of cookies in each bag and give to all the men after church is over. It's my favorite day we get to help him eat his treats!

The 5 Bickies said...

I hope I am not too late...I just came in from the garage photographing our gifts for our Sunday School teachers that we will prsent tomorrow. I bought hanging baskets at our local CHEAP fruit/veg/plant store for $6 each and made a card that says "Thanks for helping us GROW in God's love". The children decorated the tags and we tied them on with cute ribbon. For the first time I think I have something cute for teachers who do so much for our children. You inspire me with all of your ideas. I am going to do the $100 book for the fourth grade this year and will try the gumballs too! Not sure how to make the cute tag with the circle outline. I am challenged! I'll let you know how it turns out!

Jill said...

I'm always so impressed with the great teacher gift idea you do. I don't know if it's because everyone in Utah has so many kids or what, but we don't have support like that for anything.

Whitney's teacher left early in the month to have her baby and we were the only ones who gave her a gift. What in the world?

lisa h. said...

Make a bag of fudge and print this poem on a book mark and tie it to the bag of fudge for Father's Day!

Oh, it poured and it rained
and it rained and it poured.
I moped 'round the house
feeling lonely and bored,
'til Father came over
and gave me a nudge,
and said with a smile,
"Let's make chocolate fudge."
Then he gave me a bowl
that we filled to the brim,
it was fun making fudge
in the kitchen with him.
I stirred and I stirred,
but I wasn't too neat.
I got fudge on my hands,
I got fudge on my feet,
I got fudge on my shirt,
I got fudge in my hair,
I got fudge on the table
and fudge on the chair,
I got fudge in my nose,
I got fudge in my ears,
I was covered all over
with chocolate smears.
When the cooking was done,
Father wiped off my face,
and he frowned as he said,
"What a mess in this place!"
He was not really mad
and did not hold a grudge,
and we both ate a mountain
of chocolate fudge.

Jery said...

What fantastic ideas! I would love to hear any ideas everyone has for middle and high school teachers. I like to do something for them, but due to volume I end up with about 13 teachers, so can't spend a ton of money on each. I have done barnes & noble gift cards before, and always include a note from us and one from the child whose teacher it is - would like to do something more yet still affordable. Anyone??

Annikke said...

Stopping by from Tip Junkie. These are great ideas! I love the end of year shirt! I also love the bound book with giving a copy to the principal! Ohhhh and those gumball jars - TOO CUTE!!!

I posted yesterday on my blog about a fun, easy teacher appreciation gift that my kids and I made this past weekend!

Nicole A. said...

You are Fabulous! Seriously, I love the thought and time you put into your teacher gifts. They so deserve it!

Katie said...

for father's day we made little buttoniere's out of suckers - we used two small dumdum's because we couldn't find small tootsie pops. we added some small white flowers and leaves - wrapped everything with florist tape and added a tag that says "you're a great pop" or something like that! I'll get a picture of one and post it.

Anonymous said...

LOVE THE BAG! Could you email me a pattern to make this? arclepper@yahoo.com

Genevieve Richer said...

Found you through How Does She? and so glad I did! Your $$ pad is such a cool idea! Do you have a link to the "questions" or "statements" inserted between the bills? I wouldn't know where to start! Thx!

Genevieve Richer said...

Love your blog! Now a follower!

Unknown said...

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