A Nice "Thankful for Our Students" Gift Tutorial!
So, the awesome people at Silhouette contacted me to see if I wanted to play with some vinyl. Ummmm, OK? You all know I am not super crafty, so I was a bit apprehensive about working with a new medium (I am pretty much a cardstock and construction paper kind of girl). Of course, I am lucky enough to have a Silhouette Cameo {check out my review of it here and see a couple more projects} so being able to put it to good use wasn't going to be a problem.
I first decided to make a fun little gift that could be given during a Thanksgiving party or right before break. Seems like we sometimes jump right from Halloween to Christmas, and Thanksgiving doesn't always get its due. This idea could be done by the teacher as a gift for herself or himself to display, it could be a fun party activity that is led by a parent and then given to the teacher, or it could even be a fun idea for a homeschool family to be done at home!
You will need the following items:
- Rolled vinyl (I was sent 2 rolls from the Silhouette company and they worked great with no issues at all): check out all their great vinyl HERE
- A bare tree pattern from the online Silhouette store (99-cents)
- We Are Thankful design (99-cents)
- Heart flourish (99-cents)
- Sheet of fancy cardstock or resume paper
- Paint
- A frame
Take your shapes, and have the super handy dandy Silhouette Cameo cut them out. This machine is so awesome and so intricate. It can cut all the shapes out in 15 minutes flat (and that is with preparing the image on the program and getting the vinyl placed on the cutting mat).
After cutting, I peeled the shapes off and placed the tree first, then the words, heart (I actually used the inside of the heart flourish as my original heart was too large and I didn't feel like going back to reduce it), and finally the 2012 at the bottom of the fancy paper. Since it was adhesive vinyl, I could easily peel it up and move it if it wasn't in the right place, which was nice.
Next, I used regular paint and dipped fingers in the paint an onto the page to make the leaves. You could choose to use all one color leaves - or even write the kids' names on or next to their fingerprints when they dried if you really want to remember which one belonged to which student. Maybe even have the students all sign the back side of the paper?
After it dries, place it into your frame, set it on your desk, or wrap it up as a gift! I know I would LOVE a truly thankful gift like this at Thanksgiving just to be reminded of the blessings we have in our classroom each and every day. This would be so neat to have every year to display - almost like a class picture. :)
It really is a fun and easy product - and using my Silhouette Cameo made it soooo easy! I was done in less than an hour by using my handy hair drier to dry the paint. :)
Even if you cut out your own version by hand, you could still do something similar. I am curious, what are YOU most thankful for as a teacher this year?
