It's that time of year again, time to make gifts for the teachers in our lives. I really like making something for each person who takes such good care of my kids when they are away from home, but I worry that these gifts will not be what they want and will end up in the Goodwill box. This year I've made very practical things, something that the teacher can use or even their kids.
I, like many people I know, hate using plastic bags that get thrown away and clutter the landfills. So, several months ago I went looking for tutorials on the web for making some snack bags to send in my kids' lunch boxes. I also went shopping for some fabric and got carried away with the coordinates I found. That is when I decided I would also make some for the teachers on my gift list. Each one is getting a reusable sandwich wrap (the large, octagonal shape) that doubles as a place mat and two velcro-closing snack bags. Each piece is lined with PUL fabric which makes them easy to clean and keeps the outside of the bag relatively dry. These items can be hand washed at the sink when cleaning out the day's lunch boxes and allowed to dry on the dish drainer overnight. They could also be machine washed.
The internet is full of tutorials on making these so I will not duplicate those efforts here. I will tell you that the sandwich wrap started as a 14" square, and to make cutting easy, the bags were cut 7" x 14" (I cut a lot of 14" squares and then cut some of them in half for the bags.) I added a little coordinate stripe on some of them and fashioned the closure flap on the sandwich wrap from the corners I cut off the square to make the octagon.
I hope these will be useful gifts. And maybe I'll get around to making my own kids a set one day (sort of reminds me of the tale of the cobbler's children). What are you making for teachers this year?
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