Thanks Metzymom, we have also done the flowers and seeds, another o.k. idea is to take a miniature silver pail, ( found them in the craft section of Wal-mart or Michaels) and fill with Hershey's Hug's and Kisses, and put a note with them that stated "here's a hug and a kiss for when you need it the most" P.S. Please call PTO for frequent refills"
As for ideas, there are so many ideas running through my head! I've done flower pots with poems and seed packets (which was my favorite under $3 gift) all the way to Staff T-shirts (call around, you can do this for about $4 per staff member). By far the easiest way to go is to take a walk through the Oriental Trader magazine. For about $1 a member, you can provide "Back To School" classroom thermometers (a cheap, but much appreciated gift-who knows why...lol), or for even less, Patriotic name tags (on sale right now). If you have the money, the help, and the time, I have to admit, that I would go with JarsMommy! I know I'm going to use it somewhere this year!
We made name tags for each of the staff. we used large paint sticks from Home Depot (donated) that we cut to approx. 3 1/2 inches, depending on the name, then we drew lines on each to make them look like rulers. ( We could have used rulers but we liked this idea because each ruler had the 1,2,and 3 on it instead of the higher numbers on a stick ruler) Anyway, we did the lines and the names with sharpie markers and found cute apple buttons at Michaels that we cut the little button thing off the back and hot glued that into place. We also glued a fastener on the back that we got at Michaels too.
The teachers (men and women) loved them because at Open House, PTO events, First Day Fest, etc it was easier for the parents to read thier names off of a this then to try and read it off thier name badges hanging on a necklace.
These were not expensive at all, and did not take long when 4 people worked on it
Good luck!
We give our teachers a gift at our back to school brunch for about $5. What are some ideas??!! I thought of cute candles but I'm guessing they get lots of those. Someone suggested cute charm bracelets but we have 2 males! I want something useful. I found a manicure set that I could get engraved with our school name at Lillian Vernon - what do you think? I need 40 of something! Thanks!
