"TEA"cher Gift: Pencil Coaster with Coffee Mug

Hey friends!  I have missed you!

The first thing on my craft agenda is this cute gift for Cati's kindergarten teacher. For those of you new to reading my blog, Cati attends a small Christian school where she attend 3 days a week and then I homeschool her 2 days a week.  The school is set up this way and all the families follow this curriculum with their children.  We love it. And because we are a small school, we all know each other and Cati already knows her teacher and she knows her.  Which is NICE!

So I happen to know that her teacher is an avid scrapbooker and appreciates a little creativity. I decided to make her a gift just to bless her as we come back to school to start the new year.  I for one appreciate all the hard work teachers invest and I want her to know we appreciate and pray for her.


I came up with an idea to make a Pencil Coaster and give a fun coffee mug with some tea for the "TEA"cher. Fun, right? It is a simple project which everyone likes! 

First...find some pencils. :)

I think I found these pretty pencils in the dollar section of Target. I'm glad I grabbed several packs.  

I have to be honest...Pretty + Pink= Me

So the first thing I did was take these pretty pencils and figured out that 14 of them cut to about 4 inches in length would give me an almost perfect square shape to create a coaster.  I then asked hubby to saw them for me with some light sanding on the ends.  

He does not bat an eye at my crafty requests. If I ask him to saw some pencils in half...he loves me enough to just do it without more information.  I
'm crazy about that guy.

 They were the right length I needed and they cut really clean. :)

Now to glue them together...I used E6000 glue but any heavy duty glue would work here like super glue or gorilla glue (which I happened to be out of). 

I lined them up with the number stamped thingys you see in the above pic facing one way tot be the bottom of the coaster.

(what are those for anyway?)

I glued each pencil one at a time to another pencil using a line of glue down its entire length. The glue was flexible so if I was a little off in lining it up, I could fix it right away.  Not a luxury with something like hot glue. I then let it set overnight to cure.

I think it turned out so cute!

Next I grabbed a rotary cutter, cutting mat and some leftover cork shelf liner I had on hand and cut it to size of about 3.5 inches to glue to the bottom of the coaster.

 It did NOT turn out that way I measure but nothing I ever do with math turns out correctly. But honest to goodness I did try.

 I peeled off the backing of the shelf liner and added more glue to secure it to the coaster.
(wow. sorry for the grainy shots here)

  It will do. Totally not to the measurements that I attempted.  

Do as I say. Not as I do. :)

  I found the coffee mug and this adorable canister of ginger peach tea at Marshall's.  How excited was I that it had the vintagey looking label with kids in front of a school chalkboard?!  So sweet!  And the colors were all working together too.  I just love when things work out like that. :)

 I put the canister in the yellow bag and folded the top over.  Then I used a 4 inch doily and folded that over the top of the bag and punched a hole through the fold. 

 I made this cute little tag on cardstock to attach to the bag and tie with the ribbon.

Now Cati has a cute teacher gift for the first day of school!

 I would love to hear what you think!

Hugs my friends!

♥
P.S.  Did you wonder what you could do with the other ends of the pencils?

Why not do the same thing?
Or try sharpening the ends into dull points for a cute twist.

♥ I thinks this idea has lots of potential. ♥


linking to:
Tatertots and Jello
Creation Corner
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Be Different...Act Normal
Under the Table and Dreaming
A Crafty Soiree
Clean and Scentsible: The Creative Spark