Cute & Easy Teacher Appreciation Gift

You may remember from this earlier post that Baby Girl will be graduating from Kindergarten very soon.  Of course I am proud of how much she has grown this school year, but I am also completely amazed at how much she can now do.  This child is adding, subtracting, multiplying 10's and reading at the second grade level!  That kind of learning doesn't just pop out of nowhere, it is cultivated by a very talented teacher.

 I've been wanting to give my thanks to Ms. Sandberg for some time now.  It was hard to turn over my precious first baby to the school system, but Ms Sandberg cared for her wonderfully!  Since last week was teacher appreciation week at Baby Girl's school, it was the perfect opportunity to say thank you.

 I sifted through Pinterest looking for ideas for teacher thank you gifts.  I saw a lot of floral bouquets and potted plants with tags that read "Thanks for helping me bloom!" I really liked the wording, but I wanted to come up with a gift that would be easier to get home (no vase of water to spill) and didn't need immediate attention (no plant to maintain, water or transplant).  I also wanted it to be a lasting gift that was (at least partially) useful in the classroom.  I came up with this:  A bouquet of flowers (seed packets on pencil 'stems') arranged in a coffee mug vase - perfect!

Keep reading to see how easy this was to put together.

 Supplies

A ceramic coffee mug, pack of 12 pencils and a dozen seed packets were all we needed to put together this thank you gift.

Side Note:  You could certainly choose any kind of seed you wanted; flower, herb, vegetable.... but I stuck to flowers.  I wanted the arrangement to look like a big bouquet of flowers so I chose my seeds based on their packaging.

Step 1

Simply tape a pencil to the back of a seed packet.

(I left the pencils un-sharpened, the wider base made it easier to keep them in place later on)

Front View

Here is what the seed packet on a 'stem' looks like from the front.

Side Note:  Personally I would have chosen pencils in various shades of green to serve as my stems, but Baby Girl insisted on a pack of orange, red and pink.  Since this was just as much a gift from her I thought her preferences should be honored ;)

Added Sentiment

To make things a bit more special, we took the time to add a little note to the back of each seed packet.

This one was written by Baby Girl herself.  It reads, "Thank you for teaching me math".  Awwww :)

A Dozen Fowers

All lined up and ready to go!  

Whenever possible, I tried to match up my pencil color to the coloring on the seed package.  It's those little details that keep your composition from looking cluttered or thrown together.

Step 2

Add a bit of tissue paper to the coffee mug.  The tissue will serve to hold the pencils in place as you create your bouquet.  We chose blue to complement the pattern of our mug, but any color is fine.

Step 3

Start adding in your 'flowers' by gently inserting a pencil here and there as you see fit.  Continue adding pencils throughout the mug to create a full and round bouquet.

Tip:  If you have enough tissue paper in the mug, your pencils will stay in place nicely.  If your pencils are falling over, you might want to add more tissue.

Side Note:  I drive Baby Girl to school myself and walk her to the door, so I was able to help her carry this arrangement inside.  If your child rides the bus, or otherwise travels on their own, you may want to tape the pencils in place.  Another option would be to nestle the entire arrangement into a gift bag.

Step 4

Add your tag.

Our tag was a simple handwritten note, but you could really get creative here if you wanted to!

The Completed Arrangement

I was very happy with how this appreciation gift turned out; cute, colorful and meaningful!

Not to mention very easy to put together ;)

As always, thanks for stopping by
and...

Thanks for helping ME bloom!!!

I really appreciate all of my readers, all around the world!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2015