Valentines Treats and Teacher Appreciation Days

The Wonderkid's school decided to have Teacher Appreciation Days this week instead of at the end of the school year.  I understand the thinking (parents aren't likely to be as busy right now as they will be at the end of the school year) but I can't imagine not doing something for the teachers when school ends.  Any way, it gave me a direction for all of them candy making fun.  In the end, I covered anything in chocolate that didn't move (and the Wonderkid did his best to cover himself in chocolate). 

Here are the chocolate covered strawberries.  I'm still working out how these will get packaged (assuming they make it out of the house at all).

Now are you starting to understand why I wasn't able to take part in any of the challenges this week?  It has been a little crazy around here.

These are some of my favorites.  They are chocolate covered oreo cookies.  Wilton sells these wonderful molds.  I must say, I was a little challenged at first because I hadn't fully followed the instructions.  You get the best results if you pipe the different colors of chocolate into the mold and let it harden just a bit, then pipe in the color that will surround the cookie.  After you push the cookie into all the chocolate-y goodness you put the filled molds into the refrigerator.  Once the chocolate takes on a frosty color they will just drop out of the mold when you turn the mold over.  Then, put the cookies into a cello bag (I buy the Micheal's brand bags with a coupon).  Then, I pull out my Cricut and start making the toppers. 

Here is one with the topper.  Because we are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Days but it is also Valentines, I used a conversation heart and wrote "Thank U" with the same font style as the conversation hearts.  I put the conversation heart onto a black out of the heart and put all of that over a wonderful frame from SVGCuts.  All of that went over a 4 inch x 3 inch scored and folded piece of designer paper.  All of the papers I used came from the K and Company Valentines stacks.  I must say, I loved knowing that everything would coordinate and that the backs would be as beautiful as the fronts. 

Here are a few more of the cookies.  You can see I made a number of different designs and used different DP.

What do you think of the cookies?

Here are the pretzels.

I made them with both chocolate and white chocolate.  Wilton has molds for the pretzels also but I decided not to take the time to mold them.  I also find that the molds use a lot of chocolate so I don't like to do too many of them.  I put together a dozen pretzel rods for each of the Wonderkid's main teachers. 

Here is a huge pile of the pretzels and you can read the stamping I did on these.

I did some that said "Thanks!" and others use a Tim Holtz stamp.  "it's the little things that make life big."  I thought those were fitting and allowed me to use them for some of the neighbors and family friends.

What do you think of all the treats and their pretty packaging?

Tomorrow I'll show you the shirt I made for the Wonderkid to wear to school.