End Of School Year Gifts

   I like to do end of the school year gifts. I know not everyone does, and that is completely fine! 
   I personally like to because teachers (and e.a's, and principals, and the secretary!) have a really hard job! I couldn't be a teacher (well, not a good one!). End of year gifts can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be, and can cost a lot or a little, depending on what you have in mind. 
    I'll just let you know though; I asked my friend who used to be my son's e.a., and she said a good gift is homemade stuff like jams, cookies, etc. Just FYI. :)  
   Anyway, so today I'm just going to share with you some of my favourite gifts from Pinterest, and the gift the kids and I made. It's not too late to whip something up to say "thanks"!

The gift we made

   The kids and I made Cinnamon & Sugar cookies, as well as Kit Kat cookies (I'll share that deeeee-licious recipe soon!). I wrapped each type in it's own plastic wrap so the flavours wouldn't smoosh, and placed them into a little bucket with tissue paper I found at the Dollarama. Then we just tied 'em up with some cute ribbon. 
   You can package baked goods in whatever you have available, but a little effort can make a simple gift really pretty. Also, don't feel that each person needs a 2 dozen cookies or squares. Just a few will do the trick; enough they could share if they wanted, but not so much that they end up throwing some of it away because there was too much.

From Mel's Kitchen Cafe

   At Mel's Kitchen Cafe, she shows you (what I think) is a brilliant idea of making Cookie Dough Tins. So, basically instead of baking cookies for people, you make the dough roll it and freeze it, then give people the frozen dough balls with instructions. This idea is great because the gift receiver can make the cookies whenever they want, and there won't be any "these cookies are too old now, just throw them away" problems. If you do this idea though, be sure to bring it to the school yourself, or attach a note so that the person getting the gift doesn't just tuck it away, but actually puts it into the freezer until they are ready to go home. 

From A Casarella

   A post called Facilitating the Appreciation over at A Casarella gives a great idea of using a cheap spaghetti canister to hold a stack-o-cookies as a gift. I like this idea because you can see all the yummy cookies.  

From Bird On A Cake, she also shows you how to do that beautiful icing technique!

   The last gift I want to show is this cupcake holder idea. Really, if you were pinched for time, but wanted to give some gift, you could get some store bought cupcakes, and separate them into their own little 9 oz cup as a gift for one (no sharing allowed!). She tells you that to get the cupcake out you need to stab it with a fork and lift it out, but I would even suggest tying a fork to the top so it can be eaten out of the little cup.

   Well, I hope that even if you have no teachers you need gifts for, you can still get some nice baked goods packaging ideas from this post. And if you never give away baked good, well, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. I joke. You are all my friends....and saying stuff like that makes me feel pretty crazy because I feel like I'm talking into the vast world wide web and not any real person!
   On that cra-cra note, it's time to bow out gracefully(ish). Feel free to make me feel a smidge less coooky by leaving a comment about anything you want, whether it's related to this post or not!  :)  
xoxo