Tag Archives: Teacher Appreciation

End of Year Teacher Gifts…Flower Bouquets

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We made these adorable flower pots for our kids teachers! I love the bright colors.  Enjoy the “You Help Me Bloom” Theme!

The flower cookies were put onto lollipop sticks.  I cut the cookie shape out of the dough and then press the stick into the back side and put a little extra dough over the top. Then bake them with the sticks!

To decorate them, first do the sugared middle..or else the sugar will stick to the other parts! Make a small circle with white frosting (I used a loose piping consistency). Then dip into the sugar crystals. I used orange here.

After you dip the cookie in the sugar, then you pipe the flower pedals and fill them in with the royal icing. I used a think flooding consistency so I could outline and fill at the same time. Warning…be careful because it will spread a little and you don’t want it to drip over the edges of the flower. If you are not confident, then pipe first and then fill the pedals!

Here are some of the finished pops….I couldn’t decide which colors to use to I made some white and outlined in pink which I thought looked great!

After they dried overnight…I made two bouquets and wrapped the rest in bags with toole. I wrap each cookie in a cellophane bag with a ribbon and then pushed each pop into a container with foam! Here are the finished arrangements! I love the way the message cookie brings the theme together.

Teacher Appreciation Treats!

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It’s that time of year at Carrillo Elementary …Teacher Appreciation Week! So what are you doing for your kids teachers? Of course, we are baking cookies. We thought about the traditional apples, rulers, crayons, but then, how could we resist the opportunity to do something little more personal and unique (as well as a good excuse to use some new cookie cutters)!

So, for my daughter’s first grade teacher – who loves sports and used to be a PE teacher – we went with a sports theme, the special message inscribed: “YOU’RE A HOME RUN” paired with some baseball gloves, balls, and bats.  Mrs. Sherwood loved them!

My older daughter’s third grade class just finished a unit on the solar system, so we we took the everyday, universal, “thank you” to a whole new level … our overall message: “Thank you for helping us reach for the stars!” The message cookie says, “Thank You Ms. Shultz”. We made a moon, shooting star, and some mini sugared star cookies!

Our school also has a Mandarin language program for third graders…so here are some cute “Mandarin Orange” slices for our special teacher!! How cute?!

 

Hope you find something fun to give to your teachers this week.  Thanks to all the teachers out there who give so much to our children.

Yenta Mamas Go Global … Sort of …

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Admittedly best laid plans tend backfire and that’s exactly what happened with this idea I really wanted to do for Teacher Appreciation Week at my daughters’ school. The school is designated as an IB World school, part of the International Baccalaureate Programme and for a while now I wanted to do “thank you” message cookies in different languages. So I knew what I wanted to do, but when the blessed week arrived, my girls were sick! Thankfully they rebounded pretty quickly and I was able to bake the cookies, but … by that time, I was faced with another problem … my comrade in arms, Elaine, who does the icing (while I mix and play with colors) had two sick children on her hands!
Well, what do they say : “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” (Or something like that). So braced with the idea of icing these bad boys myself while Elaine was holed up the Peds office, I dashed off to Wal-Mart and purchased everything I needed … I even found a hot, hot, hot pink food coloring we didn’t have (I can’t say how excited I get over icing colors, Elaine can attest to it, and let me say, this hot pink made me as giddy as a schoolgirl)!
So happy was I was with my purchases, I picked the girls up at school and promptly got to work while they did the balance of their homework. And so here I was, smiling from ear to ear – gushing over the perfection of the piping consistency I had achieved – my euphoric mood brightening even more with that hot, hot, hot pink … sigh …
And then it hit me … I was missing one very key piece of equipment! And though small, it was very important. A coupler, this tiny piece of plastic used to attach and keep the icing tip in place. So now, I think to myself … go back out to Wal-Mart (with two children shooting daggers at me) or try to make due. I telephoned Elaine and we chatted about what to do. In the end, I decided to push the icing tip through the corner of the Zip-Loc, then put the small little icing bag into said Zip-Loc and got to work with my shaky, rather unqualified hand.
The result is below and it isn’t all that pretty … certainly not our best work … but I guess what I have to remember is … it takes a lot of talents to make the world go around and though I’m not sure of mine just yet, I’m confident in one thing: we make a damn good cookie! So, crazy week and lack-luster icing job aside, I can rest comfortably tonight knowing that my daughters’ esteemed teachers  will at least have a tasty treat at the Staff Appreciation Luncheon tomorrow! –April