Congratulations to Leanne!

All wrapped up with bow and gift card:

Almost complete - as you can almost see, some of the "ingredients" which are
discreetly hidden by nappies and muslin squares:Yay - the satin ribbon/bows + ribbon teddy topper in situ:

A close-up of hand made ribbon bow + Sizzix baby carriage die-cut gift tag:

Gift tag only with Sizzix Sizzlet "Cherish" alphabet used:

I'd received a phone call last Friday from the secretary from Alwynne's primary school with a request to make a nappy cake for one their members of staff, Leanne. Leanne has a lot of patience and is indeed a lovely lady who normally cares for a special needs kiddy at the school. The nappy cake was to be made in time for her finishing up work to go on maternity leave today [which is also our end of term]! Usually I prefer at least 2 week's notice but I made an exception seeing as I had been all organised with making the teachers end of term thank you gifts.

Instead of the usual "neutral" colours such as pastel yellow. mint, cream tones, I wanted something a little more modern and used chocolate brown and a pale mint shade.

Now, there is an error here [which has now been rectified], I wonder if any of you will have noticed it?!

The Teachers Thank You Cards

Both Miss Marr's and Mrs Mistlebrook's "Thank You" cards:

Mrs Mistlebrook's card - a combination of scalloped and layerd edges + machine stitching:
[sentiment from Stampin' Up!]

Miss Marr's "Thank You" card - close-up of dimensional adhesive pads in use:

Both Teachers gifts side by side

Miss Marr's Altered Tissue Box

I'd bought these fabric flowers some time ago for cardmaking classes I used to host and knew they would eventually become of use!! The only colours I'd bought were white flowers and pink flowers. I'd pondered on whether inking the white flower using the Dew Drop ink pads ...... and it turned out not too bad!! Papers were from a DCWV pad. Sizzix font used is "Cherish".

Miss Marr's Memo Note Block

Altered Tissue Box & Altered Memo Block for Mrs Mistlebrook

Angled view of tissue box with 2 flowers + brads:

Side close-up of Sizzix flower and brad on box side panel:

Both tissue box and memo block showing Sizzix font [Nouveau]:

Close-up of layered Sizzix flower and brad on box lid:

To decorate both items, I've used PP from both these 6x6 pad from Paper Mania:

Altered Memo Paper Block for Teachers

I came across these memo blocks in Lidls the other day when I was in doing some shopping. I bought 3 of them - 1 for myself [of course!] and the other 2 for Alwynne's teachers, Miss Marr and Mrs Mistlebrook.Now altered, this is side 1 complete with paper:

Side 2:

I thought this memo block is more suited for Mrs Mistlebrook :o) as she doesn't strike me as a girly girl if you get my meaning.

Altered tissue boxes

These are the colour tester pots I bought for this project following a wee trip to B & Q ..........

The boxes are now painted, ready for the next steps:

2010 Calendars for the teachers!

I had bought 2 x "Oxfam Unwrapped" gifts for my youngest daughter's 2 jobshare teachers. In the run up to Christmas, I hadn't had enough time nor the mojo to make anything "crafty" like I normally do for the teachers at Christmas time. I think the unwrapped gift ideas are original, totally different from traditional as far as gifts go. I do hope they are received well by Tracy Marr and Tina Mistlebrook :o) One of the gifts is a supply of clean water for 10 people and the other was school supplies such as pencils, jotters etc. If you are looking for something similar, here is the link to Oxfam unwrapped.

Both handcrafted calendar stands were created with chipboard covered with pps from 2x different DCWV pads. If you want/need instructions, please email me on HForlow@aol.com with "Calendar Template" in the subject box. I have placed photo corners on the stands to allow same sized calendars to be displayed in future years.

A close-up:

"Charms" created with chipboard, Bazill CS and die cut with Sizzix; blue photo corners created with Bazill CS/chipboard/Sizzix die cut; ribbons with buttons stitched and attached to the BIA O Wires; other ribbon tied to O wires also.

Ribbons secured by tying or stitching; buttons stitched to ribbon with DMC skeins; "Smile" bread tag from embellishment stash [sorry, I don't seem to recall where I got it from]

A close-up of charms and tag:

I placed the calendar stands in large cellophane card wraps [hobbycraft supplies] and sealed. The paper bows I created myself with patterned paper - apparently they look better with double-sided PP but I wanted to use the left-over supplies to match the calendar display stands. I want to re-think the sizes as I felt the paper bows were over-sized for these projects. Again, if you want/need instructions on how to make the paper bows, email me on: HForlow@aol.com

A close-up of the paper bows:

Miss Black is having a baby!

Marianne had asked me to make up a nappy cake for her teacher - no problem! Congrats to Carrie Black.

End of term school staff and teacher thank you gifts

Just a small few of 2-step stamping on these thank-you cards:

Those paper bags were recycled from the school staff room ages ago - I had this in mind when I acquired them lol!! Hand stamped with SU! stamps:

I bought a few little storage boxes from Hobbycrafts, a few thimbles, needles, fancy dressmaking pins, sewing machine bobbins etc and filled the storage boxes as emergency sewing kits. Using my sewing machine, I wound white, black and navy blue thread on individual bobbins rather than cards. Yeah I know, you can indeed buy tiny sewing kits for around £2.00 odds but the threads are never up to much and neither is the packaging! I think in total the sewing kit I made up cost between £6 and £8 as the items are more substantial than what you would normally purchase as 1-off kit!

I apologise for the 'puckering' of the coated paper on this clipboard - 1st coat dried brilliantly! however, the 2nd coat didn't and I proceeded to a 3rd and gave up once it had dried, still 'puckered'. The little flowers were rub-ons. In fact the patterned papers/cardstock where what I have left from my days of being "Top Line Creations" scrapbooking consultant.

I also altered a bingo clipboard in similar colours [for same teacher] and added a few notepads too. PPs and c/s again from my TLC days.

All wrapped up in cello and gift bow:

I had bought those little dainty metal plant pots from Ikea some time ago with the view to doing this - just filling up with a few choccies and wrapped in cello and bow:

A close of my small hand-made bow ribbon:

All wrapped and presented in the stamped paper bags: