Teacher Gifts - Coffee Cozies and a Gift Card

I have several other Christmas crafts I made but I haven't posted yet because I keep forgetting to get some decent pictures!  I need to wrangle those kiddos this weekend to get some and will post them next week.

I made the kids' teachers Coffee Cozies this year and included a cup (I just asked for them when I bought the gift cards) with a $5 gift card inside.  They turned out really cute!  I made three of the brown/turquoise fabric.  Paige also has one male teacher and I was originally going to come up with a different gift for him.  However, it was the evening before the last day of school before the holiday break and I hadn't ever picked up an alternate gift.  So.... I dug around and found this faux-leather that I bought at Halloween to make Blake's boots and wrist-thingies from for his Halloween costume.  I used a brown houndstooth on the inside and it ended up looking very manly :-)

It wasn't what I had planned for him but I'm happy with how it turned out and hope that he can and will use it.  If not, at least he got the giftcard too.  Here they are all packaged up and ready to go.  I included a personal note from Mark and I as well.

And while I'm posting, let me throw in this cake I made for my nephew's BDay last month.  His party didn't really have a 'theme', but my sister-in-law was taking all the kiddos go-carting and one of Nate's favorite video games is ModNation Racers, so I just took inspiration from the game cover.  He was happy and it sure was yummy, so I call it a hit!

I apparently need to work on my 'writing names on cakes' skills as well as my counting skills.  I started putting down little 'stars' of frosting to stick the candles in to - put down 12 'stars' but only needed 11.  We'll just call that extra one a decoration, shall we?

I'll get those pics taken this weekend and will post some more crafty-goodness next week.