I did get teacher gifts made yesterday/last night.  I made 6 for Ryan’s teachers for this school year. Since Ryan has several male teachers this year I needed something that would work for both men and women.  While looking at blogs I found a project that I thought would make a great teacher gift.  I also remembered another friend of mine making a similar project.  I finally found through several links a template for what I wanted to make – a Scratch Pad Holder.  The template is from Connie Stewart.  I made a boy version and a girl version and while playing around I also came up with this cool thing to do with the Jumbo Grommets.

Girl version supply list:

• Old Olive card stock
• Maine Blueberry Designer Series Paper (retired)
• Not Quite Navy card stock
• Bashful Blue card stock
• Big Shot Die Cut Machine
• Daisy #2 die
• Jumbo Grommets – silver
• Old Olive wide grosgrain ribbon
• sticky strip
• RSVP pen
• Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Bashful Blue classic inks
• Sweet Little Sentiments stamp set
• Darling Dot stamp set
• Bone Folder
• copy/printer paper

Notes on this project – the Maine Blueberry paper is the same patterns as our current Washington Apple paper – I just really like the colors in the other one and had enough to make the three scratch pad holders.  I cut four of the medium sized daisy flower – 2 in Not Quite Navy, 1 in Old Olive and 1 in Bashful Blue.  They are layered like this – Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Not Qutie Navy.  Then insert a Jumbo Silver Grommet through the hole in the center and push back the prongs with a bone folder – it is a tight fit with 4 layers.  The two ends of the ribbon are pulled up through the center of the grommet and tied in a knot in the front – see I can do knots just fine.  The printer paper is cut in half both ways to get 4 pieces per sheet – 5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″.  On about half of the stack I stamped “a note for you” and then the flower from Darling Dots.  That was the longest part of the whole project.  The matching patterned paper is just rolled and stuck inside the barrel of the RSVP pen.  I cut my piece to be 3-1/4″ x 1″ – I used the bone folder to soften up the paper and help it curl.

Boy version supply list:

• Kraft card stock
• Manchester Designer Series Paper
• Twill Tape (medium width)
• Jumbo Grommets – Vanilla
• Clear Embossing Powder
• Heat Tool
• Powder Pal
• craft tweezers
• Always Artichoke Stampin’ Write marker
• Always Artichoke Classic ink
• RSVP pen
• copy/printer paper
• Sweet Little Sentiments stamp set
• Seeing Spots stamp set
• Old Olive Craft ink

Notes on this project: Pen and printer paper are done like the girls project.  I decided to use the twill tape for this one because I didn’t have any other ribbon that I liked with the Manchester Designer Series paper.  But then the Jumbo Vanilla Grommet didn’t stand out much against it because they were nearly the same color.  So I decided I wanted to try to color my Grommet.  I tried coloring the grommet with the Always Artichoke Stampin’ Write marker and dipping it in clear embossing powder and heat set it – due to the nature of the metal grommet most of the ink pooled up and “disappeared” so it didn’t add much color.  I tried another layer and again it didn’t add much color.  I decided to try using craft ink – but I didn’t have the Always Artichoke in craft ink so I had to use Old Olive.  I dipped the whole front of the grommet in the ink until it was completely covered (this time the ink didn’t puddle up much) and then dipped in clear embossing powder and heat set it. It gave it a really crackled kind of look to it and was enough to make the grommet stand out from the twill tape.  By the way I pushed back the prongs on the grommet first except for one I only pushed part way and used that for my craft tweezers as a holder.  When you heat the metal it will get hot so you need to use the craft tweezers for holding – it also makes it easier to dip in the ink and the embossing powder.

On my second one I tried to skip the step with the Always Artichoke marker and use only the Old Olive craft ink – while this would have been great wit the Always Artichoke craft ink (if I had it) my second attempt gave me a very Old Olive colored grommet which was not the exact color I wanted for this project.  I have a picture of each – can you tell the difference?  For the third one I went back to adding color with the marker first and got more the result I had the first time which was a more artichoke color.

I took them all to school when I went to get Ryan after his exams were done.  We handed them out to all the teachers and we are all home – school is done – another year complete – a our summer has begun!

Have a great weekend!