Wednesday, June 9, 2010

End of the Year Teacher Gifts



  For end of the school year teacher thank you gifts for my sons teachers I made each of them a card organizer and 12 cards to go with the organizer; one for each month.  I've made these organizers before and they are super easy to do using 6 sheets of DSP (see this and this post for more details).  To make the 12 cards I used a cool technique called One Sheet Wonders or OSW for short.  Basically you print out a template onto a sheet of neutral cardstock (I used Whisper White) and then you stamp on the opposite side until the whole sheet is covered randomly with your images.  Then you cut apart the cardstock following the printed guide lines and use the subsequent pieces when making your cards.  Here is the link that I used for my OSW template.  This great template was graciously shared on Splitcoaststampers by a fellow demonstrator LeeAnn Greff.  This template creates 10 cards and LeeAnn also shared templates for how to cut the other cardstock pieces for the other layers on the cards (I actually didn't use these guides as I wanted to use up a lot of the scraps that I already had).

  I stamped 2 full sheets of Whisper White for each gift set.  One sheet was for the cover of the organizer and the other was for the cards.  Since my covers didn't use a full sheet I used the leftover pieces to create my final 2 cards since the template only makes 10 and I needed 12 (and I still had some scraps left which I made into more cards....you'll be sick of seeing these colors and patterns when I get through!).  It was really fun using the Circle Circus stamp set to make my own DSP.  You just pick a stamp and an ink color and stamp away then switch to a different stamp and ink color and repeat.  You can go back and add more of one image if you want and it doesn't matter if they are overlapping at all, just fill up that paper.  I used colors that went with the DSP that I choose for each organizer.  The Sweet Pea DSP pack had so many cool colors that I could make each organizer look different just by changing my paper choices.

  I got a late start on this project and only took a picture of one set of cards....it's not a great picture so that's probably why I didn't bother trying to take a picture of the other set but you can see how each card is different and how it uses the custom DSP in the layouts.  I had coordinating envelopes for each card and stuck one card in each of the pockets inside the organizer.

Stamps: Circle Circus, Defining Alphabet

Ink: Organizer 1: Rose Red, So Saffron, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip
       Organizer 2: Taken w/ Teal, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Only Orange

Paper: Sweet Pea DSP (for organizer pockets - not shown)
          Organizer 1: Rose Red, So Saffron, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
          Organizer 2: Taken w/ Teal, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Only Orange, Whisper White

Accessories: OSW template, binding machine, binding combs, scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, Chocolate Chip satin ribbon    

7 comments:

  1. This is such a great idea!! Love it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Too cute! A great idea for teacher gifts! Lots of stamping, but I'm sure very appreciated. Thanks for the links too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great teacher gift!! I'll have to keep this in mind for next year!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! Looks like you put alot of effort into these! They are really beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are great! I love how you used Circle Circus to create your own DSP.

    ReplyDelete
  6. These are so pretty! I would love to make myself one - is there any way to get instructions on how to make one? Thanks!!

    lisa.cardenas@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love these! Thanks for sharing. Can you please share the template? I clicked on the link in your post and it did not give the template. :( my email is brenskre8ions@yahoo.com.
    TIA

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to comment!