School ends in less than two weeks. Momma needs to find a way to thank five teachers for investing their time and (a lot of) energy into our little Motzlings. Panic or plan? Hmmm.
Thankfully, I remembered a little something that I had seen a while back on Pinterest. Six months later, the idea was still taking up some desperately needed parking space in the ol’ brain. Time to implement the plan. Credit goes to Amy at Then She Made.
Amy featured pencil holders, made out of wood. This project looked manageable and perfect for the elementary school teachers. (I am still racking my brain for the preschool teachers’ gifts…it’s not like preschool ends in four days or anything. Ack!)
So I bought a fence post at our local lumbar yard, and went to work. My sweet husband cut some of the post into 9 inch blocks. Because the fence post was originally 4″ x 4″ x 8′ and pressure treated…well, it was just a big, dense behemoth. I didn’t want anything to do with the table saw on this one. And of course, he was super excited to get a chance to use it. Sweet. Problem solved.
Once I had my blocks, it was time to drill. And drill. And drill.
I was aiming for 25 holes. Without something handy like a drill press, it was a little hard to keep the spacing even and perfect. Oh well. It’s handcrafted, and adds to the charm. After drilling a gazillion holes with a hand drill, it was time cut off the non-drilled end (to make the angle). We went with a 45 degree angle. Next step: Sanding. I used a Dremel to round the edges, and hand sanded the rest. I love my Dremel. It’s practically a fourth kid to me.
Once the sawdust portion of this project was over, it was time to move on to the ‘pretty’ phase. I used scrapbook paper and Mod Podge. (I probably spent two hours in the scrapbooking store looking for the ‘perfect’ paper to use for each teacher. And I had to compromise for each one. I am a terrible decision maker, and this explains precisely why I am not a scrapbooker.) As for the Mod Podge, I will confess…this is the very first time I’ve ever used it. And I am head-over-heels in love…
Mod Podge the paper onto the wood. (The piece of paper above covers the top and two sides of the pencil holder…I used another piece of paper from the leftover scrapbook page to cover the bottom of the holder.) Once the Mod Podge has dried, hand sand the corners to rough it up a bit. There’s a slight chance that I got a bit carried away with this. The funny thing about sanding…once it comes off, it can’t go back on. My solution was paint. I have a healthy supply of acrylic paint in my craft closet. I ended up painting the corners and front of each pencil holder, and then sealed it with more fabulous, lovely, amazing Mod Podge.
The orange one is for our son’s third grade teacher. She is the world’s biggest University of Tennessee fan. Funny…UT scrapbooking paper is nowhere to be found in the spring. Grrrr. So this was my compromise. It keeps with the orange theme and has a print that seems to speak to her personality. I am glad I had to paint it now, because it enhances the UT feel a little more.
The one with words is for our son’s third grade reading teacher. It turned out a little plainer than I had wanted, but I love the words on it. Perfect for a third grade classroom, where the students are learning to use dictionaries.
Close-up of the 'words' pencil holder.
The last one is for our daughter’s Kindergarten teacher. The classroom theme is frogs, but guess what? Yep…no frog paper anywhere. I am guaranteed to find it next month, however, when it is no longer needed.
The paper I chose was my compromise. There is something about the color and pattern that I loved, and it could (possibly) fit into a room full of frogs. This pencil holder wound up being a bit shorter than the other two, and I think I prefer this length the best.
Now if I can only figure out what to do for the preschool teachers…
(P.S. My apologies for the overly large pictures…wordpress doesn’t want to center anything, so my workaround is to make them big enough to fill up the page. Ha! Sorry…)