DIY: Teacher Appreciation Gift

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week! This year was the first year (obviously) that Emerson has had a teacher. We love Em's daycare and her teachers are so great. They love her so much (and we love them)! They are the most caring teachers and take such good care of Em and the other kiddos. 

To show our appreciation, I whipped up these quick and easy little gifts for them. They probably cost around $3 each and are pretty darn cute.

Supplies:

- Patterned metal buckets ($1 from Target)

- Hershey's Kisses and Hugs (I used two packs for all three)

- Scrapbook paper

- Tape

- Stick of some kind (I used shish kabob skewers that I had on hand)

- Pack of flower seeds

I just traced Emerson's hand on some colored patterned paper and cut out about five of each color. I taped the hands together with double sided tape. I then cut a circle out of coordinating paper and taped that on, as well as the skewer. After pouring in the kisses and hugs, I just popped in the skewers. The candy held the flowers upright. And that's it! 

The teachers thought they were great (I mean, who wouldn't want a bucket full of chocolate???) and they are such a quick and easy way to show some love!

Did you make anything fun for Teacher Appreciation Week? I'd love to hear!

Hugs + Kisses From the Mrs.

I've been a little MIA this week. It's been a busy week so far (which is good) but I am exhausted already (the late night Olympics are killing me!). I've also been in kind of a funk, especially yesterday. Here's hoping I can snap out of it soon. 

Mostly, I've just been missing this guy.

The main reason is that sometimes medical school sucks. It's hard not only on Zach studying/working/learning constantly, but also on the wifeys! As you know, Z is in his third year of medical school (over half way there!). For year three and four, the students do month-long rotations throughout the year. His first rotation was in Issaquah, so that was great - pretty close to home (most of his rotations will be around the Seattle area). For the past two weeks, Zach's been in Pendleton, Oregon working at the hospital there. The students are basically unpaid interns that get to meet patients on their own and then report back to the attending and discuss what should happen next. He's learning a ton and getting to see so many different things (his first two rotations so far have been in internal medicine, next is general surgery!). 

Gettin' Quirky at Target

It's pronounced tar-get. You knew that right? On my weekly (yes, weekly) trip to Target last week I happened to come across some unique finds in the home section. Apparently Target is trying to jump on the hipster train too with all sort of quirky knickknacks. I was kind of loving it and probably spent a good twenty minutes checking out every little thing they had. For instance, who doesn't need a Buddha Butter dish?

Or a Solar Queen (there's a solar panel on her purse that makes her wave!)

What about a gorilla piggy bank? Is it weird to anyone else that it's still called a "piggy" bank even when it's another animal?

For those of you that don't know me that well, I have a small collection of Salt + Pepper shakers (some from my grandmother that she used to collect too). So naturally, I was all over these salt + pepper shakers. Salt & Pants. It says: The most fun you can have with your pants on. Yep. 

Salt + Magic. These were particularly awesome. 

Then there's the classic Chihuahua with hipster glasses.

Welcome to the mustache section. 

I liked this little guy. He just wants a cookie.

Can't forget the irony.

And my personal favorite, the ninja-bread-men cookie cutters. I totally should have snagged these up, but there were around $10 and I was being a cheap-o. Aren't these sweet though? 

They had a ton of other stuff too. It was pretty entertaining. I didn't end up getting anything since there was nothing that I couldn't live without, even though I am still thinking about those cookie cutters (they're cut out for action!) 

Do you ever find anything unexpected and quirky at your favorite stores? It was a nice little surprise for me! Oh, and if you need even more quirkiness, check out the Queen of Quirky, Zooey Deschanel on SNL. 

DIY Chalkboard Planters

Is anyone else in shock that 2012 is half over already?! Hello, July! I just hope it starts to feel like summer up in here. C'mon Seattle! Get with it. The rest of the country has already!

Well, I finally got with it and hopped on the chalkboard paint bandwagon. Took me long enough, but I'm really diggin' it. I needed a cute solution for one of my little succulents. So I picked up a little planter and some Martha Stewart chalkboard paint at Michael's and got to work. I opted for the paint instead of spray paint because well, they were all out of the spray paint at the store. Next time maybe I'll try out the spray paint and let you know how it compares.

50 Things (Not 50 Shades...) Gift Idea

As promised, I want to share with you more about the gift we got Zach's mom for her 50th birthday. But first, a little bit about our other weekend shenanigans.

Friday we celebrated our 4th anniversary(!) with dinner at Purple (yes, I most definitely devoured the lobster mac n' cheese) and then Les Mis at the 5th Avenue. A funny thing happened on the way to the show though... we forgot our tickets! Yeah. This almost never happens to me (Zach is a different story  though:) and I was pretty mad! Luckily, we had dinner reservations pretty early (5:30) since that's all that was available for us procrastinators and we had just enough time to drive home to Renton (from Seattle) and back again with about ten minutes before the show started! Phew. 

Happy New Home Gift Idea

Last week as part of the wedding festivities we met up at Meghan and Eric's new house for a little get together. They have cute little home with a great yard (and garden!) in Seattle and it was so fun to see it with all the new paint and furniture (last time we saw it they had just bought it). As a housewarming gift I used this inspiration from, where else, Pinterest!

I love this idea. Especially since jars are so big right now. Plus, you don't have to deal with all the wrapping, but instead they have a jar they can still use (not that I don't love a pretty bow or two). I shopped around and found some cute stuff to plop in the jar.