NSR...Not Stamping Related...

I just had to add these closeup pictures of the beautiful quilts we made for our preschool teachers. This one happens to be for my son's teacher and his class is the Dinofours. There were a total of 20 crazy quilts made and then 3 panel quilts featuring the Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. As I have said before, my hat is off to my quilting queen friend Cindy. She did such fabulous work and very quickly I might add. I helped where I could, ironing on the Wonder Under, tracing hands, cutting out of hands, ironing of hands onto squares & binding, trimming, however the only sewing I did was limited to sewing the squares into to strips.

Each quilt was quilted with a pattern that was somehow related to each class. As in this picture, the Dinofour class quilts were done in a dinosaur pattern. I think Cindy did a fantastic job matching patterns to classes. Other examples were the Cat in the Hat for the Dr. Seuss class (3 year olds), fish for the Fishy Fours class, ladybugs for the Ladybug class (2 year olds)...well, you get the idea.

Just another example of my friend's amazing talent! Well, I have actually taken the plunge and have started working on a quilt similar to these, but I can't say too much in case the recipients happen to be blog readers :-) I just hope I paid good attention to everything Cindy did. I am quite anxious to finish as these will be my first ever quilts all on my own. Wish me luck and thanks for looking!

Teacher Appreciation Luncheon

Friday, April 9th was our annual Teacher Appreciation Luncheon for our preschool teachers. As mentioned in my previous post, the theme was an Afternoon High Tea. Our fellowship hall is quite large so we made the setting a bit more intimate by setting up near our wall of doors and windows and using portable room dividers to "wall" in the opposite side. The teachers entered through the trellis to choose their seats.

The table settings were casually elegant. Two tables had matching tea cups & saucers while the other two had mixed settings...some borrowed, some thrift store finds.

We sat our party favor boxes on this table which was covered by a beautiful springtime quilt made by the mother of my parent co-coordinator, Cindy. It was such a cute set up. The ladies dined on cucumber sandwiches, smoked salmon on pumpernickel, chicken salad croissants, apricot scones, cream cheese scones, cheese straws and lots of fresh fruit. Believe me no one left hungry. For dessert, one of our room moms and party organizers made English Trifle and some really wonderful Lemon Tea Cookies....yummy!

After lunch we presented the teachers with their appreciation gifts. My school parent co-coordinator Cindy offered to make quilts for 20, yes I said TWENTY, teachers and staff members. I helped where I could, you know like the easy sewing and cutting parts :-) I cannot praise Cindy enough for the time, dedication, and love she put into this project. We started working on these quilts back in September and if memory serves me correctly Cindy completed the last binding the early or middle of March. Well, you could have heard a pin drop on the carpeted floor when the ladies opened their gifts...they had to wait to open them all at the same time.

Here they are!!! I have had the pleasure of knowing most of these ladies for the last five years when my oldest started at this preschool when he was 3. I have always made it a point to let my children's teachers know how much I appreciate all they do, as I am sure a lot of parents do, but the looks on their faces as they gazed at these beautiful pieces of art really made them realize that we truly mean those words of appreciation. This was a work of love for some fabulous ladies that lovingly teach our children.

Love Our Teachers

It's that time of year... to let our preschool teachers and staff know how much they are truly appreciated. Every year we do a luncheon for our teachers and staff and this year's theme is an Afternoon High Tea and their gifts are fabulous, but I can't say or show what it is just in case any of them happen to read my blog. The luncheon is next Friday the 9th and then I will let the cat out of the bag. I try to do a handmade Save The Date card each year, usually stamped, but this time I had to depend on line art clip art for my focal image. I laser printed on watercolor paper and what a PAIN!!!!! Due to the texture of the paper the toner does not adhere properly (guess how I found that little tidbit out??) so I had to spray with a workable fixative so I could watercolor my images. Live and learn so the saying goes.

I used my Stampin' Up! Color Coach and Watercolor Crayons to fill in with the Dynamic Duos combinations. I think the only Duo I did not use was the Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa.

I printed the Save the Date phrase onto Confetti paper and still had to spray with fixative...hope the heat setting device on my printer is not going up. The phrased were popped up on Dimensionsals and then I punched some Dynamic Duo photo corners to fill in all that white space.

I mailed out 23 of these cards on Thursday...I know, can we say procrastination? Hope the teachers and staff enjoy receiving these as much as I enjoyed putting them together. I am really looking forward to spoiling them at the end of the week!

Happy Easter and thanks for stopping by!

By the way, sorry for the horrible lighting. I was in such a hurry to get these in the mail that I did not have time to pull out my mini photo studio and take better shots. That will teach me for not getting on the ball earlier.