teacher appreciation day gifts

I admire and commend each and every educator for their patience and determination as they greet their students each day with a smile and encouragement, telling them that they are the best they can be. All week the team at The Twinery have been sharing gift ideas for teachers and I have one more.

Today, I wanted to show how you can take a simple note card set and package it into something fabulous. I carry these note cards in my shop and have been packaging them in glassine bags with a cardstock belly band and wrapped with Stone baker's twine.

* find note cards here

After creating a personalized note card suite for Victoria's teacher, I decided that I should also show our appreciation to the Teaching Assistant as well. I'll pop Mrs. H's set into the tote bag I featured on the blog on Monday, which means I'll probably need to make another one for the Teaching Assistant...she's totally worth it!

Now, you've turned a simple glassine bag and some eco-luxe Stone Baker's Twine into a gift with a bit of wow. You probably saw my embellished tote bag, but here it is again just in case you missed it. Okay, it's not specifically for Teachers, I agree, but I love cute tote bags and hope that Mrs. H. does as well.

Me and free are always friendly, so I repurposed this tote bag from blah to bee-ewe-tee-full. If you don't have a free one hanging around, I've also seen them at craft stores in a sturdy canvas and have used them in the past for these tote bags.

Here's how I did it:

1. Gather blah tote bag.
2. Find some felt, or fabric, and your favorite shades of baker's twine.
3. Using a punched shape as your guide, trim a variety of free form circles in pleasing colors.
4. Stack felt shapes and use a french knot, or two, or three to adhere stack together.
5. Hot glue baker's twine embellished felt flowers to your tote bag.
6. Do you see your tote bag quickly going from blah to beautiful?
7. Punch holes in a shipping tag to form a letter and "sew" your letter with baker's twine.
8. Hot glue ball trim to tote bag and embellish with more baker's twine.

What's your favorite Teacher gift idea?