Teacher Gifts

We leave in twelve days to spend 5 weeks overseas. Which means I am a little frantic! The kids will finish the school year 3 weeks early, so our teacher gifts need to be ready earlier than usual. We usually have two kinds of gifts - 'major' and 'regular'. Part time teachers or sporting coaches fall into the 'regular' category, while class teachers receive a 'major' gift.

This year we have made personalized liquid soaps (thanks to Pinterest where we saw the idea!). Ask Design Mom made these that we loved, so we came up with our own version. We ended up making about 16; some for school teachers, teachers at church, family members and close family friends.

I tried to use Ask Design Mom's template, but was unable to add my own text. I ended up making up my own templates. If you'd like a copy of mine send me an email and I'll send you one!

Just a couple of tips:

• Peel off the labels and then wipe off the residual stickiness with a goo remover product (ours was an orange oil based product from the supermarket).

• I had our 'labels' printed on acetate at a copy place (Officeworks here in Australia!). Save your file as a pdf so that you don't lose your formatting and then have it printed. It cost me 6o cents per acetate sheet in black and white (I put four labels on each sheet - though you can actually squeeze more on!).
• The first lot I had printed were black, while the second batch were more of a dark grey. I think this had something to do with the machine at the copier place. The black definitely looks better, so it might be worth mentioning that you'd like it as black as possible!
• When you are putting the acetate label inside the soap dispenser, make sure that the expiry date that is stamped on the bottle is at the back!
• Take off the dispenser lid, roll up the acetate label and place inside. Make sure it is facing the right way before putting it in! Use the dispenser 'straw' to move the acetate into place.

We will add a ribbon bow around the neck of the bottle before popping into a cute paper Christmas gift bag (I just couldn't wait to take photos!).

 I'm hoping that we have counted incorrectly and there is actually one left over for us!