Summer Gifts for Teachers

It's that time of year when I'm throwing together last minute teacher gifts. Seems like we just had Teacher Appreciation Week, right?  I enjoy any excuse to create. Bring it on.

I am actually surprised I got these done. I really didn't think I had time to pull it off in the time I had between cleaning up lunch and getting Hank off the bus. Had a hour and half. The thing that helped was that I had the idea in my head and I didn't waver from it. I knew what colors, design, stamps, and dies I wanted to use. And over the years, I think I've come up with a few basic guidelines that help putting a card set together in a short amount of time really easy. Let me share those:

1. Use one focal point stamp. In this case, it was a polka dot flip flop from Flippin' Out. The coordinating dies helped to add lots of layers and interest.

2. Make the cuts simple. I used Sentiment Splits: Horizontal Curve to add a ton of interest with very little effort. (Man, that die has been in heavy rotation here. Have you noticed?)

3. Pick a sentiment set that has multiple sentiments in the same font. I like to give a variety of occasion cards, yet keep things looking consistent. I used Sentiment Splits to match the die. Plus that curve keeps everything looking interesting.

4. Points 1 through 3 were all about keeping things rather consistent, but I like to change it up a bit too. I use color to do this by varying the colors of each of the cards and focal point. We have Raspberry Fizz, Summer Sunrise, Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, and Winter Wisteria all on a Classic Kraft card base.

5. Add little luxuries such as a vellum edge (Sheer Basics Vellum) and little felt details. These are not premade embellishments. Who knows if you have enough to use on all the cards in your sets and they tend to get expensive. So I make sure I make them myself. If I need to use a little something, like the rhinestones, I make sure it is basic and something I have a ton of on hand.

6. Line the cards for a little extra homemade touch that you can't get an Hallmark.

7. Keep card boxes around for easy packaging.

8. Work in an assembly line fashion. Do all the die cutting at once, for example. Stamp all the objects that are one color at once. Glue all the flowers at once. You get the idea.

I think the last rhinestone went on, I slipped on my shoes, and I headed out just in the time to meet the bus. This all went a lot quicker than I thought it would.  Ten cards in a hour and a half? That puts a big smile on my face. Got to love that.