Week 50 or (Teacher) Goodie Bags

We're heading off for a few days, including Christmas, in the mountains. Not that we're necessarily going skiing or hiking or snowshoeing. Or really anything involving the outdoors. The hotel has a fancy pool, with big and little water slides and a hot tub. There's an indoor water park at another hotel in town. And there are outlets. Shopping as well as electrical.

That's an 18" ruler. I cut the round piece freehand.

Ready for a roller skating sleepover.

With gifts like these, you need a fancy bag.

Before we leave, we need to get through one more day of school, though. Which means I need to kick it into gear with the goodies for the teachers. Most people stick with a small something for their child's teacher. But I was raised by a teacher and a crafter/student. And my husband was raised a giver. He always overspends on gifts and he'd rather err on the side of generosity, be it in sending MP3's, tipping waitstaff or giving to teachers. So we get something small for every person who has contact with our kids. This year that's 12 people. Make that 14, but it's too late to make another 2 bags, so gift certificates it will be for them.

My dad gave us some lovely shiny material a few years back. Maybe he wanted me to make him a vest out of it. Maybe it was for a dress for the girls. In any case, it has been sitting and now it is going out. Last weekend, I made a gift bag for a birthday party my younger daughter attended. I dare say, I would not have minded getting that bag with my own birthday present in it. (It's not the same when you make it for yourself.) A simple not quite perfect circle as a base. A rectangle for the body. A bit of satin cord. An hour later, there was a bag.

The gift tags are this free printable.

Crazy detail: teacher's names used to finish the drawstring casing.
(Zoom in if you need to see it for yourself.)

The other material lent itself better to flat, square bags. More random pattern. More easily cut randomly. Which is what you need when you want to just slice across and down and not worry about whether you cut a giant motif in two different directions. I meant to get more ribbon for drawstrings on Monday. Luckily I had ribbon lying around waiting for a project.

Four larger bags for the teachers in the homerooms and 9 small bags for the rest of the staff. Yes, 9+4=13. One bag went to the younger child before I realized my miscount. Note to self: make the gift list from the staff list, not from memory, next year.