Quick End-of-Year Teacher Gifts

Single-panel notecard sets are my favorite gifts for teachers. Not only are they practical, useful, always needed, and appreciated, they are inexpensive. For those who are new to Simplicity, you might not know that my children both have special needs and have whole teams of teachers and therapists and aides in school. Just through school, there are 12 people who are actively involved in their education, and that's not counting the gym, music, and art teachers, or Jack's therapists at Children's Hospital. Even inexpensive gifts add up when you have so many people to acknowledge.

Soooo, I make notecard sets and package them in clear boxes from Papertrey. Completed, each set of ten cards costs less than $3 each.

Some sets are super-simple, like this one using border stamps from Hero Arts.

Other sets get a little fancy, with outlined edges (using a marker and ruler) and a bit of coloring.


Others use simple black-and-white stamped images with just a spot of color. Isn't that little Hero Arts doggie adorable?


Papertrey stamps work, too. In fact, these little notecards are amazingly adaptable to all sorts of images. And you can draw boxes if you want; read how on this post.


Only one of the education team is a dude, so no cute doggies or bumblebees or flowers for him. This backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms makes a perfect school-themed, gender-neutral notecard.


All the cards are made from PTI stampers select cardstock, which is nice and heavy and simply screams quality. I buy my envelopes at our local Marco's Paper store. I don't like mass production, but coming up with a variety of sets makes crankling out lots of sets much more interesting.

Hmmm. Maybe we should have a One-Layer Wednesday challenge to make single-panel notecards. Put on your thinking caps for that, but not next week because I've already got that one planned. Maybe before Christmas, when we're all scrambling to make quick yet nice gifts. There's a thought!

Have a wonderful weekend, and may you be blessed to find time to do something creative.