Teacher Appreciation

Most of you know it is Teacher Appreciation Week...
if you don't, it's totally cool because now that I've told you...you know ;)

I must confess, that I haven't done a whole lot in years past for either of my kids' teachers...once they got past Kindergarten there just wasn't any teacher that really inspired me or my kids, for lack of a better term.  This year however, my daughter's 4th grade teacher is A.MAZING.  And ironically enough, I found out she is friends with my most favorite and inspirational teacher that I had growing up...it really is a small world.

Mrs. Anderson has made school fun again for my Diva Princess and she enjoys going...despite all the ridiculousness that seems to ensue in our county.  She has been so helpful and nurturing to my sweet girl and I have seen such growth and I know it is because of Mrs. Anderson...and Alyson even says so herself.  So, with that being said, I knew that was going to plan more than just one gift for Teacher Appreciation Week...and seriously, there is so much inspiration out there, I could probably send something in to school everyday from now until the end of the year and never run out of ideas!

Over the weekend I put together the first gift of the week using an OH SO CUTE Subway Art Printable from Eighteen25....seriously cute! (not to mention they have so many other cute printables and ideas!)

See...cute, right?!

I also picked up a nice frame from Walmart that was on clearance for $5.  I loved that it is 11x14 with a mat and the frame itself was so nice I knew I wouldn't need to paint it or anything...LOVE IT!  Once I started putting it together though I knew the mat was going to need something else because the off white with the white of the subway art was NOT working for me.

Now, I have to be honest, I had been so busy over the weekend that I wasn't finally putting this together until late Sunday night so I didn't have a whole lot of time to make this work.  Initially I thought I would use some pretty scrapbooking paper around the mat but as I was standing in my scrap space pondering my choices, I looked up and saw my little collection of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Sprays.  It was like I could hear the angels sing...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

(okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little)...

BUT I knew what I was going to do...

Please forgive the not so great pics...like I said, I was doing this late Sunday night ;)

I took the mat out of the frame and spritzed it several times over to dress it up.  I was so loving it when it was finished!  I don't think you can really see it in the pics but it had a great shimmer to it and a few splatter dots and it just gave it an overall awesome look (if I do say so myself!)



I let it dry overnight and then put everything together lickety-split in the morning.  My little Diva Princess loved it and as it turns out so did the Awesome Mrs. Anderson...

You'll have to forgive my sweet girl's sleepy-eyed smile...
she hadn't brushed her teeth yet so she didn't want to show them!  LOL!

It's not too late to get your Free Teacher Subway Art and send one in to your favorite teacher!

I didn't take a picture of today's gift but I sent in a collection of books for Mrs. A's classroom library along with some labels I had made through Vistaprint...it cost me a total of about $3 and they looked something like this...(obviously with Mrs. Anderson's name on them)

(I got the idea for these from MomsByHeart.net ...another super cute idea!) 

Still trying to decide what I am sending in tomorrow...but I have more than a few ideas to choose from.  Have you sent anything in to your favorite teachers this week?