Usually, it goes something like this at 8 o'clock the night before... "Hey babe, it's the last day of school tomorrow. Do you think I should come up with something to give the other teacher's on my team? You know, like an end of the year something or other? How about those cookies you made for Christmas? Those are cheap to make, right?"
He does this on purpose, not the last minute thing, but the throwing ideas out there thing. He knows that being a stay at home mom has left me desperate for creative outlets. And although he complains that I go overboard, I know he secretly loves the outcome. Plus he is a work smart not hard kind of guy. So, this is exactly what happened yesterday. Usually, I'm twelve steps ahead of him by the time he comes to me with this convo but being just a couple days a way from going into labor, I guess it slipped my mind...
This is what I came up with. Of course I had a ton of things pinned on pinterest, God bless that site, and chose the one that I already had everything for since it was now 9 p.m.. This one was an owl theme with a very cute play on words (which Jason slightly complained about since he was a dude passing these out, but I assured him that everyone knows his wife does these things for him), "OWL miss you! Have a HOOT this summer." I quickly made a little 4x4 card on Microsoft word to print out and place inside my cookie bag. Next step was making the owl top for my cookie bag. Since I fortunately only had to make 8, I did it assembly line style. First, I folded the brown paper in half and drew the face of my bird, and cut those out. Next, I used three different sized circles (traced from a modge podge lid, a sippy cup bottom, and the lid of my glue stick) cut out of grey, white, and black pieces of cardstock for my eyes. Lastly, I cut out orange hearts for my beaks. Once I had all my pieces cut, took me about 30 minutes, I just glued them all together. Voila, adorable owl head.
Meanwhile, while I was doing all this I was baking the cookies I was going to fill each gift bag with. Jason loves my go-to chocolate covered cherry recipe (he enjoys bragging). I refrigerated the cookies over night so the gooey chocolate coating could set and wouldn't be all over the bag. The next morning it was a quick assembly. I placed a label on top of a napkin in the bag, cookies behind the napkin (so they wouldn't grease up my label), folded the top down and stapled on my owl.
I have to say they are cute. They didn't require too much thought or time, I know the cuteness will embarrass Jason as he's handing them out (which I love. Secret punishment for waiting till the last minute), and were an inexpensive way to say thanks for a great year.
I pinned a few others that I thought were cute as well but just didn't have the stuff for. I hope to still use them in the future. I'll share them here. Let me know if you have any other end of the year parting gift ideas!
- See you later alligator
- Customized hand soap
- Fishies
- S'mores
- Another take on the S'mores
- Stay cool this summer
