Super Cute Flower Pens

Everyone who knows me knows I am a bit of a freak about my pens.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when people walk away with my favorite pen.  A creative way to solve this problem is to make them into pretty flowers.  Then when someone walks away with one of them, I can quickly spot my pen on someones desk!  They also make a great teacher gift, what teacher wouldn't love some pretty pens for her desk?

 To make flower pens, you will need:
Pens
Flowers
Floral tape
Glue gun

 Start by yanking the end cap off your pen by any means necessary.  I usually use my teeth, but pliers are probably a better tool!
Remove the stem from your chosen flower and put a glob of hot glue on the end.  Stick the glued end in the shaft of the pen, give it a twist to spread the glue on all sides.

Allow the glue to cool slightly, and adhere the floral tape to the top of the pen.  Wrap the floral tape around, making sure to stretch it as you go.  Once you reach the bottom, use a tiny bit of glue to stick down the end.  At this point, the pen will be slightly tacky from the floral tape.  It will go away as you use the pen, but you can roll it between your hands to remove the tackiness more quickly.

 

 This is what the finished pen will look like.  I find that the cap doesn't fit well after wrapping with floral tape, so I toss the caps.

Now that you have a pretty pen, you need something pretty to display them.  To make this container, I used Mod Podge to adhere scrapbook paper to a peanut butter container.  I used ribbon to cover the part where the lid screws to the container and stuck on a flower for good measure.

This, along with a Thank You note written by my daughter, will make a perfect Teacher Appreciation gift!

Cookie of the Month - December

This month for my daughter's teacher, I decided to use some of the cookies from our Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza.  I selected 3 different types and tied them up in this cute little snowman bag I found in my stash.

This batch was given a bit later this month because my daughter's teacher was not in the classroom for the first week of December.

Hand Towel Angel

My mom bought a super cute Angel made out of kitchen towels at a craft fair she recently attended. They were so cute, we decided to make some of our own to give as gifts.

Here is what you will need:
Hand towel
Fingertip towel (if you can’t find one, a microfiber towel will also work)
Pot holder
Rubber bands
Thin wire
Small beads
Ribbon
Bunch of berries or other small item for angel to hold

Start by folding the hand towel using an accordion fold. Once it is folded, find the center and fold in half. Secure with a rubber band about 3 inches from the top. You may also want to temporarily secure the bottom to encourage the pleats to hold their shape.

Fold the fingertip towel in an accordion fold. Place a rubber band in the center of the towel and about ½ inch from the bottom of each end.

Bunch the potholder and slip through the center rubber band on the fingertip towel

Wrap the ends of the fingertip towel around the hand towel and secure the ends together.

Now that you have the basic shape of the Angel, it’s time to decorate her.

To create the halo, string beads on a wire and twist to make the circle shape.  Be sure to leave several inches to slip down through the rubber band at the neck. Tie ribbons around all the rubber bands to hide them. Feed the plastic hanger from the towels through the ribbon used to tie the wings and arms together as shown in the photo below.

This is a shot of her from the back

Slip the berries or similar item through the rubber band and the "wrist", or you can leave her "hands" empty.

Before wrapping or hanging in your own house, make sure to remove the rubber band on the bottom and, voila cute Towel Angel suitable for gift giving. This makes a great hostess gift or teacher gift.

Note: I forgot to take pictures while I was making my angel, so I used old towels to take the pictures for the tutorial. The folds are much harder to make with well worn towels, but it will still work.

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Cookie of the Month - October & November

I forgot to post October's Cookie of the Month, so here is a quick snapshot of what I did for October.  I made Carmel Apple Bites.  They looked like little carmel apples down to the stick, but they were actually cookies.  Because October's holiday is Halloween, I included a few plastic spiders to set the mood and wrapped them up all pretty.

 My mom found this fantastic cookie recipe that tastes just like Twix bars.  Oh my...they are so good, I could eat the whole recipe in one sitting!  Anyway, they are called Thousand Dollar Bars.  The recipe can be found here on the King Arthur Flour website.  I wanted something cute to package the cookies in, and I happened on this tutorial from Dandelions and Dust Bunnies.  Perfect!  I made the strips a bit longer (about 10 inches) to accommodate the cookies inside, cut a large leaf from green paper and wrote out the words.

So cute, now to start thinking about what I will do for December.  There are so many cookie recipes to choose from!

Cookie of the Month - August & September

I am a bit late getting this posted, but here goes...

I decided that I wanted to do a little something special for my daughter's teacher.  Teachers do so very much for our children, and they do not get enough thanks for all of their hard work.  One of my friends told me about something she did last year called Cookie of the Month.  Each month, she baked a new cookie recipe and gave it to each of her kid's teachers.  I thought this would be a great thing to start with my daughter.  Hopefully I can keep it up for the full year.  Here is what I have done so far...

August:  Chocolate Chip Cookies

 I included a note explaining Cookie of the Month Club and asking her to let us know if she has any allergies.

September:  Chocolate Glazed Shortbread

This actually isn't the finished product, because I wanted to show the cookies in the picture.  To make the bag:
* Cut down a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper to the size of a sandwich Ziploc bag.
* Fold paper in half and about 1/2 inch from the bottom of each end.
* Line up the bag and paper and punch 2 holes.
* Feed ribbon through the holes and tie in a bow.
* Glue bottom flaps to form a flat bottom to make the final presentation below.

I tell my daughter about the cookies in her backpack and she gives them to her teacher.  My daughter loves giving them to her and I love being able to say Thank You each month!

Teacher Thank You Gift

My oldest daughter graduated from preschool this year.  I wanted to do something different for her teacher because everyone always does the same things, and really, how many "teacher" things can one person have?  Needless to say, I was excited to see this Chalkboard Planter over on The Crafters Filebox.  I thought it was the cutest idea, and with a few changes, we came up with the planter above.  It was easy-peasy, completely done with spray paint! 

After the pot was dry, I took my daughter to the local home improvement store to pick out the plant (that is why it looks a bit sad...she always picks the sad flowers, I think she feels sorry for them).  Then we traced her hand on cardstock and glued 2 pieces together to make the pick.  I wrote a message on the front, and she colored a picture for her teacher on the back.  We gave it to her teacher on the last day of school, and she loved it!

These are so versatile.  Because the pot is sealed before you start the project, they should last, and would be great for growing herbs or other small plants.  The chalkboard paint makes it easy to label, and to change the labels when you change the plants.