Archive for May 2015

EOY Gifts for Retiring Colleague or Administrator

Wednesday, May 27, 2015


Yoo hoo!  Remember me?! I'd love just ONCE this year to not begin a post like that.  Between starting a NEW job at a NEW school this year plus a whole lot going on in my personal life (got dad's blood work back yesterday- 3 months post chemo and so far so good! Keep up the prayers!), it's been nuts trying to maintain blogging.  I pinky promise next year I will be better ;)  Hopefully you've been keeping up with me on instagram.

ANYWAY,  I got a pretty significant response to this post on instagram and wanted to share about it in the hopes it will help some of my friends out there in the world wide web...   Our Head of LS is retiring after 15 years this year and while I've only known her a few short months, I wanted to do something special to commemorate her and leave her with lasting memories of all of us.  I know one of my favorite bachelorette activities is to stock the bride with tons of vino!  I piggy-backed off that idea to create a school-themed gift from us faculty.



Each faculty member selected a school event that our Head will either be surely missed at... or glad to be missing!  Back to School Night, Spring Concert, PT Conferences, Field Day, whatever events are "special" at your school.   My colleagues wrote down a little message to be put on the bottle and emailed it to me.  Then the fun stuff came... 4+ hours of making these customized labels (the weekend before reports were due! What was I thinking?!).  On that day, she pops open that bottle, reads the message and thinks warm and fuzzies about all of us.  ;) 



For those who can't look at this and see exactly what I did... I made these in PowerPoint using Kayla's ADORABLE  honeycomb paper and Graphics from the Pond's frames.  Presto customized wine labels.    Don't have time for all that?  Not to worry, HERE is your own EDITABLE version.  Save time! I already put in 5 hours so you don't have to.  


I then printed the PowerPoint slides onto sheet sized labels and cut them out and attached them to the back of the wine bottles.  And by me, I mean all of my colleagues (LOVE them!!) came over for a little cutting and sticking party in my room.  Too bad we couldn't drink any of the wine.... 
HINT: Use the back so that your giftee can see what kind of wine it is!  


(don't mind this one, it was my first label and I didn't have good attaching skills!) 

The tubs I used to hold the wine were from Party City and cost around $8 a tub.  As you can see, this is a relatively affordable, super cute end of year/retiring gift for someone special at school!   See more gift ideas in my last post below (eeek! it's my holiday gift idea post!) 

PS- check back next week for photos of how I wrapped these up all pretty with a bow and cellophane.  Too exhausted to take pics today after carrying them into hiding away from the kiddos! Wine+kindergartners=NO BUENO!

PPS- if you are interested in having these custom labels, here ya go!






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