Time for Teacher Gifts!

I have a tremendous appreciation for teachers. My sister is an incredible (and nationally recognized - brag, brag) elementary school teacher, so I hear all about the heartbreak, hard work, and amazing successes that come with her job. Now that my girls are in middle school, we have to spread our appreciation through gifts a little more widely than we used to, but I always try to send a special thank you at the end of the year for all the hard work these amazing people have put in to teach my kids.

To get started on this year's end-of-school cards, I pulled out my PTI Teach and Inspire stamp set. This set has some great heartfelt teacher-themed sentiments, and since you can't have a teacher card without an apple, I also grabbed my Apple Prints set and coordinating dies.

This card layout was originally created by Nichole Heady, and I have made several incarnations of it over the years. I adore scrunchy seam binding bows, and the partial die cutting along the edge is an easy technique with a fun wow factor. 

To create a border using any die, position your top cutting plate so that it is part on and part off your die. The section sandwiched between the two cutting plates will cut through, and the section without a top plate will remain attached. Then trim with a trimmer or craft knife in a straight line between your cut images. Hard to explain but easy to do! Here's a card I did using the same technique and some Halloween pumpkins a while back:

Partial die cutting is an easy way to make dies more versatile. Anyway, back to the topic at hand! My second teacher card uses the images from Teach and Inspire. I love this cute tree, and the sentiments in this set are some of my favorite in all of my extensive stash. (Insert guilty grin.)

I plan to create a nice card for each teacher to pair with a modest thank you gift or treat. I am so grateful for the teachers in my life who inspired me to pursue the things I still love today. What a gift they are to the world!