A Special Gift for a Special Teacher

It's hard to believe the end of the school year is upon us already! As such, our kindergarten class had our last get-together today, celebrating with ice cream sundaes and a fun craft/gift for our teacher. I took on the task of coming up with the craft/gift and wanted to share the results with you!

First, I scoured the internet for ideas. I wanted to come up with something really special for our teacher! I found this really cute painted flower pot that really inspired me. How cool would it be to have a pot similar to this one and have it "planted" with tissue paper flowers made by the kids?

This is the inspiration piece I found on the internet.

A quick trip to the home improvement store yielded a terra cotta pot and matching saucer. I got them home and hit each with a coat of spray primer.

Time to get creative! I painted the outside body and inside lip of the pot with black crafting paint... 

 ...and the saucer too!

While those dried, I got to work on painting some kabob sticks in a shade of green similar to the pipe cleaners we'd be using to fashion our tissue paper flowers.

Fast forward a few days... I get so into what I'm doing that I often forget to stop and take pictures of the process to share with you here!

I painted the outer lip of the pot yellow and used a Sharpie to write dash marks and numbers, giving it the appearance of a ruler. The top rim of the pot and saucer are highlighted with a splash of red. The saucer also features a yellow pinstripe of color and small white polka dots to add detail. Next I hand-painted a thank you message and adhered the saucer to the pot with Liquid Nails.

I lined the pot with Saran wrap and sprayed liquid expanding foam into the pot. My plan was that the sticks (aka "stems") of the kids' tissue paper flowers would be stuck into the hardened foam, however the foam expanded more than expected and ended up looking like a souffle'!

 Lining the pot with the Saran wrap would allow the contents to be easily replaced later if desired.

No worries! I simply removed the pot's contents, relined it with Saran wrap, and sprayed more foam into the pot—this time taking care not to spray as much as before!

Next I painted some little flowers and leaves on the backside of the pot...

 ...and, VOILA!! It's ready to go to the party!

I literally worked on this project down to the final minute—some of the paint on the pot was still wet as I walked out the door to go to the party!

 And, finally! The finished project revealed!

Each kid attached two leaves to their flower stems—one had the child's name, and the second had something about their teacher that the kids especially loved (ie. her hugs, smile, etc).

The kids were particularly intrigued by the foam in the pot. Everyone had fun stabbing their flower into it!

The kids had a great time making their flowers. Some found doing the accordion fold of the tissue paper challenging, but thankfully we had plenty of parents on hand to help everyone get their flowers assembled!

Another successful party down in the books! And the teacher loved her personalized gift to boot!