Teacher Thank You Gift

Hi there!  Just to warn you, this will be a long post w/ lots of pictures!  Grab a drink and a comfy seat and settle in!

My son "graduated" from Kindergarten last night!  So exciting!!!  What a great year we had!  I am so thankful for the wonderful teacher that he had this year!  For his first official school year, it rocked!  His teacher just loved him, which, if you know him, that's easy to do!  And it made for a wonderful teacher/student relationship all throughout the year.  It's so amazing to see how far he has come in one year academically!  I am so proud of him!  But.... this post is not about him!  It's about his teacher!  I wanted to make her something really special, because she truly is a special, one of a kind, teacher.

I decided to make her an organizer for her desk.  As I was decorating it, I thought, well, this would look fantastic on MY desk!  As I LOVE all things vintage!  And I'm not sure if his teacher would appreciate the vintage feel.  Oh well!  I hope she likes it!

I took 3 Papertrey Ink stamp mailers (for lack of a better word) that my friend Wendy gave to me, and I cut them to 3 different heights to achieve the look that I had in my head.

All of the paper that I used is from the Swirlydoos April kit Bella Volo.  I LOVE the Bo Bunny paper!!!  It was perfect, as it all matched!

 This is the first (back) layer.  I created a notepad holder to place inside.

 This is the cover of the note pad holder.  I used Oval Nesties, letters from KSS, butterflies from SU Sizzlet, twill tape, lace, chipboard swirl, prima flower, rhinestones.

 This is the inside of the note pad holder.

 Here's a different look at the note pad holder.

 This is the next box, holding a set of note cards.

 And these are the note cards.  I created the background paper entirely.  I used these stamps to create the background:  Bliss (SU!), Tim Holtz Letter to Santa, KSS Letters From the Past, Inkadinkado Bold Damask, and Oval All (SU!).  I used the Martha butterfly punch, brown brads, MFT scallop die, lace, twill tape, buttons, and a quarter of a doily that I sponged brown.

  And the smallest box!  I decorated pens, and created a post it note holder for this box.  And then decorated the front w/ some small embellishments.

 Here's the front of the post it note holder.

 And the inside of the post it note holder.  I know, you can't tell what that is, right?!  ;)
 

 Here it is w/ the post it note holder tucked into the box.

 This is a closeup of the pens.  I just took strips of the paper that I used for the boxes, and rolled them up, and stuck them in each pen!

 Here's the finished product!

This is just to show in relation to other things on my desk.                

            

And the side of the boxes.  I decided to leave them clear so that she can't lose anything and it's easy to look inside!

That's it!  This project took me about 2 months to complete as I have had other things to work on in between.  I would work on a little bit at a time, and it's finally done!  Just in time too! As the end of school is Friday!  Hahaha, nothing like waiting until the last minute!