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. 

Valentines for and with children

These are the Valentines the Wonderkid will be taking to his classmates.  They aren't exactly what I would have done if I didn't have a three year old helping me, but I think they came out OK given the challenges and skill levels.

I asked the Wonderkid if he wanted to do elephants, dinosaurs, birds OR bears.  I showed him each of the cuts and let him choose.  His answer was, "Yes".  Yes, he wanted to do bears, yes, he wanted to do birds, yes, he wanted to do dinosaurs AND yes, he wanted to do elephants.  After realizing the futility of arguing with a three year old, I agreed to all four designs. 

I bought these SVGs from Letter Delights.  I must say, I love the look of their cuts and while they cut very nice, the layout isn't intuitive and the paper piecing can be VERY difficult.  I'm starting to get better at understanding how I can make these do-able.  The eyes on all of them are almost impossible and they had these little tiny traingles for a tongue.  Needless to say, it was never cut.  I tried doing the bird with all of the layers and about pulled my hair out (and that was without the Wonderkid).  If you ignore all but the most important pieces, these become cute and doable.  Remember most of them are based on their printables and graphic files.  In the past I would purchase a graphic file and convert it to an SVG.  This is MUCH easier.  And, on the plus side, they are having a very good sale right now.  It is 40% off of all their files. 
 
All of the paper for the valentines is from K and Company.  I must say, I don't buy a lot of K and Company but I love the Valentines stacks because they coordinate so nicely.  I used their stacks last year for valentines gift bags and it was the same way.  When you are trying to make a lot of things that are similar but not necessarily the same these are fantastic.  In addition, I was able to use different papers and know they were likely to compliment.  I let the Wonderkid dig into my stash of gradient gems for the eyes on all of the animals (that made him as happy as a pig in mud).  The "Happy Valentines Stamp" is from Hero Arts.  It has the unique name of "Happy Valentines Day".  The "Super Tweet" and "Dino-mite" stamps come from My Pink Stamper's Punnylicous collection. 

Here are close-ups of the cards (although I shudder at some of the glueing).

The bird with the heart from the bear cut.

The bear is supposed to have wacky eyes (one is bigger than the other), I'm not sure how well that comes through in this rendition.

He does look happy, doesn't he?

And the elephant.  Most of the elephant heads didn't get lined up as well as I might have liked.

Next up, treat bags for the Teacher Appreciation days.