Author: anne

How to Choose a Good Tie and Wear it Well

Since Father’s Day was yesterday, perhaps the tie-giving holiday of the year, I wanted to pass along a tip I learned just recently about choosing good ties.  In the past, I have professed my ignorance about choosing and styling ties. In the United States, formal 

Ballet Makeup Tutorial

When you are a mom, you wear a lot of hats all the time.  This week, in addition to my role as a teacher Santa, I also had to moonlight as a makeup artist for my daughter’s ballet recital! I went searching online for ballet 

Entertaining Teacher Gifts

Bearing gifts for teacher on the last day of school.

This week was the end of the school year which means one of my top priority tasks was to organize thank you’s for my daughters teachers.

For this year’s teacher gifts, we went the entertaining route. I was a bit stumped for ideas but received a timely email from Pier1 Imports reminding me of their super-chic Tasting Party collection.

While realistically it might be hard for the average person to make little tiny hors d’ouevres to go on these beautiful serveware pieces, they will make even simple things like store-bought cookies or cut fruit look beautiful. We eat with our eyes “they” say.

If the teachers don’t cook or entertain they could also use them for:

  • Bathroom caddy for toiletries like cotton balls, Q-tips and air fresheners
  • Entryway caddy for spare change, cell phone charging, keys gloves and other pocket gear
  • Stylish desk caddy for paper clips, tape, stapler, stamps, etc.
  • Small craft supplies caddy for spools of ribbon, beads, stickers, etc.
  • Modern Flower vase

Best of all, I got them for about the same tiny budget I spent last year.

I also saved a little time on the card this year without skimping on the style. Instead of hand glittering and gluing on a photo, I just used a pre-made photo card for teachers.

For this post, I blurred out the identifying info and faces to protect privacy (and yes, my daughter’s teachers are beautiful women). The card had the desired effect and the teachers really loved it, particularly my daughter’s hilarious expression.

Any other creative teacher gifts this year?  Can you think of another use for the serving dishes?  Please share in the comments.

P.S.  I have no affiliation with Pier 1 Imports.

June’s Theme: The Lazy Days of Summer . . . NOT!

As you may have noticed, I missed posting entirely last week! I have not yet recapped April and May nor given you a theme for June. I don’t know if that has ever happened before in my 2 years of blogging. There is nothing wrong 

The Ick of Ticks

As I mentioned before, we share our garden space with numerous visitors.  For some people (and usually me) this can be the icky part of gardening. Is this a mole beneath my daughter’s earlobe? Nope.  It’s a tick! Yes, ticks are back.  We have pulled