Vision board motto (Free printable)

One of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis. Taken in or out of context it has so much truth to it. And so applicable for a Pinterest Vision Board, wouldn't you say?

Also suitable for printing and hanging on your fridge to help keep you focused on what's important. Heck, if you've got the skills, make it into a magnet!

But, if it doesn't help you, drop it! ;-)

Teacher Appreciation Questionnaire

A Little Backstory:
As you may remember, Alexander is 3 and this past year (2011-2012) was his first year of school. He has Autism and is in the special needs pre-school program in our county. Putting him in school this young was a pretty scary step for me, so his teachers being as awesome as they are wasn't just a nice lucky surprise but a fantastically wonderful relief! 

After realizing just this past Monday that Teacher Appreciation week would shortly be upon us (next week!), I immediately set to Googling and browsing Pinterest for some great creative gift ideas. I spent about 30 minutes (ok, maybe it was an hour, Pinterest time never quite equals reality time) pulling together a few things on my newly created Teacher Appreciation week board. I found a lot of really cute, inexpensive ideas that I'd love to try. I feel like I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the team that made his first year so pleasant (for both of us) though so I found it difficult to make up my mind on what I would like to give. I did more research and found several surveys, a helpful slide show and one particularly interesting infographic --->

(Right click and open in new tab to view full size)

The general consensus I discovered from my research showed that teachers most often prefer fairly practical gifts (gift cards and school supplies) to cutesy personalized mugs and apple oriented crafts. It was also pointed out that the best way to know what a teacher will really like...is to ask her! (or him.) Quite the novel concept, I know, but I decided to run with it. 

I now knew that I was going to get Alexander's school teachers (he has 3: 1 teacher, 1 parapro, 1 speech therapist) gift cards and I was going to ask them flat out what they would like the gift cards to be for. Of course, I also knew that if I just asked them a generic "what would you like for a gift" question, they would probably say something to the effect of, "oh, you don't have to get us anything," or "oh, anything is fine." I figured it would be easiest to write something up and have them make selections versus asking them individually in person. And so the Alexander's Teachers Questionnaire was born!

***

Alexander’s Teachers Questionnaire 

Teacher’s Name: _________________________________________________

Favorite Restaurants: (Circle Top Two)

Chili’s
On the Border
Red Robin
Applebees

T.G.I.Fridays

Olive Garden

Macaroni Grill

Longhorn Steakhouse

Outback Steakhouse

Red Lobster

P.F. Changs

Starbucks

Dunkin Donuts

Other: (Please list) ________________

Favorite School Supply Store: (Circle One)

Walmart

Kmart

Office Depot

Amazon.com

Barnes and Noble

Target 

How would you rate Getting a Manicure/Pedicure or Massage on a scale of 1-10? (1 = Hurts and I hate it / 10 = Heaven on earth) _______

Please rate going out to eat, shopping for school supplies, and getting a mani/pedi in order of “Most Interested/Preferred Activity.” ______________________________________________________________________________

Anything else Alexander should know about you as Teacher Appreciation Week approaches?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

***

I added the Mani/Pedi option after really giving some thought to what I (as a woman and mother) would most like to receive as a gift. Both Alexander's teacher and his parapro rated the mani/pedi as their most preferred activity so I figure I had a good idea. I shot them an email this morning asking if either of them had a favorite nail salon. They came back saying that yes they did and also how much they appreciated my kindness! I'm so glad I went with asking instead of continuing my desperate brain wracking trying to guess which things they would like best!

Due to the success of my little experiment, here is a similar questionnaire for those of you out there who find yourself wondering what to get for those hard working teachers we love so much! (Click here for a google doc version)

(jpeg format)

(I know the mani/pedi part probably wouldn't work for a man teacher but hey you never know!)

Don't be embarrassed to ask a teacher to fill this out! Unless you're the exception to the rule and see your child's teacher outside of school on a regular basis, you probably haven't really had the opportunity to become best friends. This means there's no reason in the world why you should have the first clue what his/her favorite restaurant would be, etc. I think offering them an opportunity to tell you what they would like most is really the most considerate way to go about this, and the teachers in your life will probably agree and appreciate that gesture in and of itself.

I'm sooo happy to have the chance to give these wonderful ladies a hint at how much their work has meant to our family this year! I hope they already know how wonderful I think they are!

Pass me the snow shovel

I saw this saying hanging on someone's wall when I was a kid. I remember being amused but now I really get it. I actually think a snow shovel would be a handy piece of equipment to have when picking up around my house. So here's a printable, free as always. You can edit the frame part out if you don't like it and put it your own frame. 

Click. Save. 

Share.

Enjoy.

Homemade Peppermint Brown Sugar Scrub

Here we have another great Pinterest find:

Tip Junkie Compiled - 14 Easy Homemade Sugar Scrub Recipes

I pinned that honey of a link all the way back in October when I first started getting ready for Christmas. I knew it would make a great "neighbor gift." We recently picked up about six or seven #10 (60 oz) cans of brown sugar from my husband's parents when they were cleaning out their old food storage. The sugar is 'expired' and quite possibly not as good for eating anymore but when I found these recipes I knew they'd be perfect for a scrub. I ended up making sugar scrubs for Alexander's teachers (teacher, parapro, and speech therapist) and for all the ladies at church that I visit-teach (and one or two that I don't). 

All the recipes are essentially the same (sugar, oil, some kind of extract for scent) so I knew I could get away with tweaking and making my own. Corrie's Brown Sugar Body Scrub from Paula Deen's website seemed the nicest, I thought, and I even already had a bottle of Vitamin E to use. My first batch was actually for a bridal shower gift for our brand new sister-in-law and my ever-self-sacrificing hubby braved Hobby Lobby on his way home from work to pick up lavender and peppermint extracts so I could indulge in my homemade gifting plans.

Indulgence for the bride

As you can see, I did one lavender and one vanilla scrub for my bridal shower gift. Then for the rest (I wanted to go more Christmas-y) I went with peppermint. Since I was making so many, I played around with doubling, tripling and quadrupling the recipe and made a few batches over several days. Here's the general gist of my final "mass production" recipe.

4 cups brown sugar

2 cups olive oil

1 tablespoon vitamin E oil (I used Spring Valley Vitamin E Skin Oil from Walmart) 

15-30 drops essential oil (I used Crafty Bubbles Peppermint Essential Oil from Hobby Lobby)

2 tablespoons honey

Combine wet ingredients first (I kept forgetting to do that, but with a little extra mixing they turned out fine). Then add brown sugar and mix well. (When I encountered stubborn lumps of sugar, I just reached in which my hands and smushed 'em good.) Portion into containers and seal tops on tightly. Tie on tags with cutesy ribbon and distribute. :-) 

I used 16oz (2 cups) containers and this recipe only filled two of them. 2 cups is pretty big though so you could definitely go down to 8 oz (1 cup) containers and have a great little gift.

I don't seem to have any pictures of the final Peppermint Scrub product but here are some free printables of the tags I tied on them. 

Click. Save. Print.

Click. Save. Print.

I got the tag itself from the Holiday Recipe Collection over at Shabby Princess. The little blue section is where I put the "To-From" info. I printed the tags on cardstock and then flipped the page over and printed the instructions on the back before I cut them out. That way you've got a nice two-sided tag with everything you need. 


These scrubs would be great gifts any time of year. We've got Valentines day coming up, then Easter, Mother's day, and then it's practically Christmas again right? Just change out the peppermint oil for your recipient's favorite scent and you're golden. :-)

Pinterest 'wins' from Christmas!

Now that Christmas is over I can post about the stuff I wanted to keep a surprise! I went a little nuts this year on projects (what year don't I go nuts?) but I really enjoyed making the gifts for my family and friends. I think this Christmas may have been my favorite so far since I put so much focus on the giving part. Of course, the receiving part was great, too, and I'm going to post about that on our family blog sometime in the next few days for journaling purposes.

So, here's the beginning of a run down on the projects you missed while I was keeping secrets...

First: the T-Shirts

I found the ideas for almost all my projects on Pinterest. I did a whole bunch of shirts for people based on designs from there, but using iron-on transfers instead of the fancier methods. Iron-ons don't always look as nice but since I was doing so many, I wanted to use a method I'd done before. I completely forgot to take pictures of my actual finished T's so here are the inspiration photos (some from Pinterest, some from elsewhere) and some exported jpegs of the files I used.

For soon-to-be-born and new babies of family and friends:

For our nieces:

  For my brother in law:

For my siblings and our nephews:

Another nephew:

 

These two were for a couple of good friends of ours who we refer to as the boys' "Godfather"

and "Fairy Godmother."

I'm particularly proud of this last one because I came up with the concept and the phrase for the back of the shirt all by myself.

I bought the shirts at Hobby Lobby (link) and Walmart (couldn't find a link to the actual pack I got, but just go to the mens underwear section and they have good prices for undershirts that work well for doing iron-ons).

The shirts were just the beginning of our gifting endeavors this year. Stay tuned for more this week!

Christmas-time

My camera has gone on a little vacation, and I can't post anything about the homemade gifts I'm giving for Christmas without ruining some surprises, anyway. (Although just about everything I'm doing can be found in the glorious mess that is my Christmas & Easter Pinterest page. If you find yourself at a loss for last minute homemade ideas, DEFINITELY check out that page!) Soooo...here is a revisiting of my best past projects that could be used for Christmas gifting or decor.

Original Post: Easter Design

Original Post: Irish Blessing Subway Art

Original Post: More Easter Time Art

Original Post: Put Your Photos on Canvas

Original Post: A pseudo-tutorial (ish)...thing (The Living Christ Frame)

Just one more week to go! I'm so excited for Christmas this year!

"...Laundry" Printables

I hadn't done a free printable in a while and I've had this idea rolling around in my head for months. So here you go. Two options. Laid out to be 8x10's. Print and frame and hang next to your washing machine. Wry smiles guaranteed. :-)

Click. Save. Print.

Click. Save. Print.

Marriage Advice Printable

When Kevin and I got married we received an 8x10 framed copy of a "Recipe for 'A Happy Marriage." After my Seinfeld post last week I was reminded of that recipe (which we have hanging in our kitchen) and decided to re-vamp and share it. I've actually seen several other versions of this same idea but I think it bears repeating. 

Click. Save. Print.

This printable is formatted for a 4x6 card. You can try printing it larger but the quality won't be as good.

Digital scrapbook elements found at ShabbyPrincess.com - Holiday Recipe Collection

Graduation time printable

Click. Save. Print. 

Suitable for greeting card or framing. 

Feel free to tweak/edit as you wish to fit your individual needs.

Printable Foldable Mothers' Day Cards

I wanted these cards to be quick and easy to make for any forgetful child (of any age) or husband who happens to hop online at the last minute looking for something to give the mama. So I've included the full page sheets formatted to be printed on 8.5x11 printer paper and folded in the quarter fold card style.

Quarter fold instructions 

Not overly elegant but it will give you something to sign your name to in about 60 seconds flat. It's the thought that counts, even if that thought is in the wee hours of Mother's Day morning.

Of course if you've found this post ahead of time and want to get down and dirty with some cutesy, scrapbook-esque card making, by all means reformat my little project anyway you see fit.

Generic Mothers' Day Card

Full 8.5x11 foldable sheet

From Husband to Wife on Mothers' Day

Full 8.5x11 foldable sheet

Mildly Humorous Mothers' Day Card

Full 8.5x11 foldable sheet

Digi-Scrapbooking elements used are from:
-Winkart Graphics and Kiss This Designs. Found in Rakscraps Nov 2010 Megakit
-Shabby Princess Designs Festival Collection