Teacher Gifts

Being the holiday season, it seems there is no end to the "required" (or expected) gifts to give. With 3 kids, teachers are pretty much a permanent fixture on my Christmas list. This year's offering is an apple.

You like my apple? Red ramekin, red cellophane, red candy, and a green chenille stem (pipe cleaner).

From a roll of cellophane, I cut 15" squares (cause it was 30" wide) and I cut the pipe cleaner in half. Each one has 1 cup of candy - you could use red jelly beans, red gummy bears, these have boston baked beans. Now, gather it up, "tie" it off with the pipe cleaner, and trim the extra cellophane.

We can't decide which looks better. Do you prefer the cellophane inside the cup (taped it to the bottom so it stays) or around the outside of the cup?

Do you have other fun teacher (or other) gift ideas?

Animated Beauty

A friend shared this video. Hope you'll take time to watch it, as it's hauntingly beautiful. It's animated by a guy at BYU.

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving and Life Rushes On

Clearance tablecloths, napkins, glitter pumpkins (from Halloween), 3 bags of candy, and 14 place settings with the Harvest Blessing Mix treat bags and turkey napkin holders, and we've got our Thanksgiving table. My girls helped me put together the turkey napkin holders.

I think the tables turned out looking pretty good. Thanks J and K for helping. Too bad I forgot to take pictures during dinner, when there were actually people in those chairs.

Thanksgiving was a week ago, and I live for Christmas, so I'm always anxious to start the Christmas music, get out the tree and decorations, and make lots of crafts and gifts. But since going back to school, I feel almost Scrooge-y. I think it's because I don't have the time to do what I usually do during the holidays. This year, I haven't completed gift shopping and making, I'm not completely on top of Christmas decorations, and we haven't got the tree out, yet. But I did manage to pull out the red tablecloth (while putting away the orange from Thanksgiving) and change the contents of my vases. So I have one Christmas decoration out. At least I can say I've started.

Now, ribbon bow around the vase bottoms or not? I can't decide what would look best. That, and I don't actually have any appropriate red or green ribbon on hand. Does they need a ribbon?