I have to say that I totally agree with Tammy that gifts made at school can and should be gifts worth holding on to. Not that I'm against pretty handprint flower art (my non-blogger teammate made beautiful handprint art cards) but if possible, I'd like my student-made gifts to be able to stand the test of time. I decided to try something different this year based on this pin from Kimbo at A Girl and a Glue Gun:
Here are some of mine:
I have to say that I've never worked with Sculpey clay before and although it wasn't difficult, I don't think I have a gift for it. I picked out a pretty light petal pink color with a bit of shimmer to it thinking it would turn out something like Kimbo's. But after baking the hearts in the oven, they all turned a fleshy-clear color. And they also looked dirty even though I rolled the dough out on a clean, flat surface. Kimbo's didn't seem to change color after baking like mine did. Maybe I baked them too long? Anyways - my teammate (The Meek Moose herself) had some gold spray paint left over from our Ancient Egypt unit so a quick spray solved the color problem. I'm actually glad I painted them because the shiny gold really made the thumbprints pop.
After the paint dried, I attached the jump rings using pliers (if I do this again I will skip that step), the kids attached the string and bells, and I tied off the ends with the clasp.
When it was all said and done, I felt like I had done a bit too much of the work for it to be a kid project so we made pocket cards for the key chain to hide in. We are working on poetry in writing workshop now so what better than an acrostic poem for the front, and then a pocket on the inside for the heart. A few students wrote what they could in Spanish for non-English speaking mothers.
Something to the effect of "You are the prettiest mom in the whole world. Look here"
As always, stay fabulous!
Thank you for mentioning me. :)
ReplyDelete❀ Tammy
Forever in First