Mother's Day Bonanza

I swear no holiday stresses me more than Mother's Day or Father's Day. Why you ask? Could it be because I always want to do something special and unique for my own parents, never giving them the same gift? Nope. Sadly my own parents are an after thought ... the first thought that comes in my head is, "What the hell am I going to get my students to make for their mom/dad??"

I busted out the popsicle sticks and started to build with it. My original idea was to have the kids make this container type thing where we would put tissue-paper and pipe-cleaner flowers in it. Or pencils. Anyways, it took me no time to finish mine but then I realized that I'm dealing with less dexterous midgets who not only take their sweet time when completing tasks but have not yet mastered the art of having a conversation and doing work simultaneously. Add on top of it them needing to paint the sucker so it doesn't just look like a bunch of wooden sticks glued together? Yeah. Scratch that. Problem is I have like a day to figure out something cute/useful/won't see the wastebin in the near future craft for them to bring home.

I went through this mother's day file that a friend of mine has and came across this cute poem that was like four lines that said something along the lines of: I've made this mat so that when you take a sip of tea you'll always think of me. Then I had this ureka moment. (How the hell do you spell that word?) I figured the popsicle sticks wouldn't go to waste afterall! They/I would make coasters for their moms and glue that poem (laminated of course) on top of the coaster. How cute and original. I basically made the damn things. I made 23 frames with the popsicle sticks and the kids had to then close off the top and bottom. They painted it. They decorated that piece of paper with the poem on it. I laminated those papers and cut them out. I glue-gunned the papers on each coaster. I glue-gunned the "jewels" that the kids picked out to have on the edges of the coaster to make it look pretty. I wrapped them. I glue-gunned a daisy in the middle of the wrapped product.

I think that this went well (though I was feverishly working all day on Friday with multiple hot glue burns on my hands) but it's a cute idea. I think for next year I'll do it again but this time maybe shellack the finished product.

Mother's Day down. Father's Day to go. Damnit.

*I technically started this post on Thursday but finished it today, Saturday.