Buckets of Teacher Present Ideas

I feel like I've been on a blogging hiatus lately.  Between hosting my family's Thanksgiving and getting my house ready for Christmas, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed these days!  But those two things are done, the Christmas cards are addressed and I survived my annual Black Friday trek with my sister.  So back to the blog :)

This year for my kids' teacher presents, I found this fabulous idea on How Does She.  Using the idea of the "12 Days of Christmas", this gift combines fun, practicality and whimsy for a cute, personal teacher present.  And how could I resist a present that's centerpiece is a bucket :) 

I modified Missy's idea a little bit to personalize our buckets.  The idea is the same - find 12 different items for your child's teacher(s), and use the numbers 1 through 12 for the gifts.  Add a fun saying to each item and you have a great Christmas present.  Here is what my buckets ended up looking like:

 

 

I found the buckets at Target at Halloween time for $5.00!  I then used Uppercase Living's Personal Studio to make the vinyl words to personalize the buckets.  If I only had a Silhouette, I could make them myself!  (Hint, hint for my husband for a Christmas present - pass the word if you would please - he doesn't read the blog :)

 

As for the contents of the buckets, some things were a splurge (but my kids' teachers are worth it) and some were back-to-school deals.  Here is the list of the items I found:

 

1.  Personalized clipboards from eBay.

2.  Pens

3.  Sharpies

4.  Red and Green Notebooks

5.  Giant Paper Clips

6.  Post It Notepads or Scissors

7.  7 oz. of hand sanitizer

8.  8 x 2  magnetic clips

9.  Packs of microwave popcorn

10.  10 x10 sheets of construction paper

11.  11 oz. of Hershey's kisses

12.  12 oz. of hot chocolate

 

Here is a close-up of some of the items:

 

 

I put the Hershey's kisses in a craft paint container and added some paper to dress it up. 

Their teachers can then use the containers when the kisses are gone.

 

Grace's school colors are orange and black.

 

For Ethan's daycare providers.

 

4 notebooks tied together with some ribbon.

 

6 packs of Post-its.

 

6 scissors for Ethan's daycare. 

I put the scissors in a cello-bag and tied it with some baker's twine.

 

After I placed all of the items in the buckets, I wrapped a Christmas ribbon around the buckets.

 

 

This was a fun gift to put together - and it was made even more fun knowing they are going to three very special ladies!