Teachers' Christmas Gifts

I started preparing for my kids' teachers' gifts last year! Yep, last year. I saw this neat thing out here in blogland (somewhere, sorry!) to make magnets using bottlecaps! So, I started saving beer bottle caps a little uner a year ago. Yea, and this took me quite a while because #1, I we don't drink a lot of beer and #2 the caps couldn't be TOO bent. Twist off caps are ideal, but, when we buy beer, we like variety, so we have all different kinds of caps (Yingling, Blue Moon, Heinekin, Pesidente, Corona, etc.) Thinking back, I should've just stuck with the same beer all year - would've made things A LOT easier - but less interesting...oh well!

Anyway, here's a look at the few different varieties of gifts I made:



I made 5 of these in total (all different). Two of them were recyclables from Maya Road. These are tins I bought Maya Road goodies in and then saved...for the right project...hello right project!! I love recycled projects. Makes me feel like I'm doing something good while I'm...doing something good ;). The other three tins were purchased from Joanne Fabrics (at 60% off - way cheap!!). So anyway, I covered all these tins in October Afternoon's Schoolhouse and Report Card papers/letter stickers/element stickers.

For the magnets, I punched 1" (fit perfectly!!) circles out of Halloween, Easter, Christmas, and Valentines Day themed paper and then glued them into the bottle cap, using Glossy Accents glue. This helped the papers not to lift when I added the resin - trust me, there were many that did not make the final cut (trial & error what can I say)! I got the Resin from Michaels (over in the glue section) but Glossy Accents would have worked perfectly. Buuuuut I don't like to waste my Glossy Accents. I started out using it, and half a bottle was gone in NO TIME!! The resin was $20.00 - but i used a 40% off coupon - and you can get A LOT more use out of that stuff!! In the end the resin was much more cost effective AND I really like how it came out better than using the Glossy Accents - believe it or not.

Well, that's my share for the day.

Geeze - does anyone else feel completely overwhelmed with their “to do” list this holiday season?!? Yesterday’s sermon in church was about just this kind of thing - doing too much and missing the Spirit of Christmas!! But, I mean, between Christmas Cards (mine are made, but not addressed or written out yet!), teachers/family/friends gifts (all of which I’m in the middle of - well, at least the teachers are officially checked off the list!!), both of my kids have their class parties this week, our Bible Study Group’s party is Wednesday (I have to make guacamole and 4 scrapbooky gifts just for that - just printed the pics!!), wrapping gifts, and I have 4 dozen cookies to bake by Wednesday too. It's a lot to do!

Then, on top of all of that, I was hit on my way home from work 3 weeks ago & left feeling absolutely like crap!!! Nonstop headache for 3 weeks straight!!!! My doctor prescribed meds. and I’m going to the Chiropractor for massage therapy (MRI soon). So, this weekend, out of nowhere, I’ve started having an allergic reaction to the meds (hives, red - itchy rash on my hands that are sensitive to the touch - THEY’RE MY HANDS - all I do is touch...and, oddly enough, my tongue hurts!!!). I stopped the meds. Thursday night....and I can't get to the doctor until Wednesday! ANNNND, just in case I haven't convinced you that my plate is full enough...Sal & I are taking the kids (helping chaperone their youth group The Marines for God) up to Orlando for the weekend, to the Holy Land Experience. I think God’s trying to force me to slow down... but these things are NOT going to do themselves. Today may be my only post of the week - and I’ll share more next week...we’ll see how it goes. Sorry to wine like a baby!! Hope you have a great week.