Craft: Teacher Appreciation gift

School is out next week.

Thank you dear Lord baby Jesus.

We made it. I'm still alive. I'm so close to freedom that I can almost taste all of the projects I'll be working on for the next three months while the chil'rens are "not in school". Truth be told, the boys didn't finish where I wanted them to in math, so they'll still be doing math lessons everyday. But compared to the workload we had this year...this will, most definitely, be a summer vacation. For all of us.

The chil'rens had amazing teachers at their charter school. They were so caring and loving to my babies, and they put up with a nonconformist, anti-public school, unschooling rebel of a mama. I wanted to show my appreciation for all of their hard work throughout the school year. While they might prefer gift cards, I just couldn't let the end of the year go by without making them something.

Like a chef makes you something delicious to eat.
Like a woodworker builds you something amazing.
Like a person with a beautiful voice sings you a song.
Like a gardener plants and harvests and shares his crop with you.

I like to make things for people I care about.

It's how I show you I love you, ya know?

I found a few cool ideas on Pinterest, but in the end I decided to make something that was sweet and personal. That's when I came up with the idea to do a simple monogrammed frame. Something that the teachers will always remember my children by. The apple was the sweet touch.

I gathered a few unfinished wood frames from Ikea that I have stacked around the studio for such occasions as these and painted them black. Then I measured and cut squares of burlap fabric to fit inside the frame. I found a font I liked and then grabbed my husband who is the family sign painter so he could freehand the letters for me.

Yes, freehand. He's ridiculous like that.

I then filled in the letters with black craft paint. To create the added touch of the apple, I used white paint to create the shape of the apple and stem. Once it dried, I painted on top of the white with red and green. If I had painted directly on top of the burlap, the apple wouldn't have had such vibrancy in color. Also, it has to pop from the black.

Once the burlap was dry (with the aid of my handy-dandy hair dryer at 7am because YES, I finished these in the morning before my kids had school--what can I say? I like to live on the edge.), I fit the squares into the frame. Yes, you have to move them around to fit directly in the middle and although one of my designs was a little too big for the frame, I thought it gave a rustic feel to the monogrammed frames.

Yes, when in doubt, call it rustic.

Cyan and his frame for Mrs. Medeiros and Maya's frame for Mrs. Mendez

I can't forget Xixi's frame for Mrs. Kiley!

These Teacher Appreciation gifts were really simple and sweet. It was cool to walk into Open House and see their frames hanging near the teacher's desk! My babies were so proud.

I think that beats a gift card to Target or Starbucks any day.