One Sharp Teacher Gift Idea

Posted on December 15, 2012 by 2busybrunettes

With us both being teachers, we thought it might be cool to do a joint post together on the top 10 gifts to give teachers. I mean, everyone has a teacher in their life whether it be your child’s teacher, or your mom, aunt, brother, or friend. And with Christmas approaching and college graduations occurring, now is a great time for gift ideas! So we got to thinking about this plan for a blog post.

Until something happened.

We received our pencil sharpeners in the mail. No longer was there a need for a top 10 list. We didn’t want to waste our time with numbers 10-2. So we’re just going to tell you the top item. If you haven’t guessed it, it’s the classroom friendly pencil sharpener!

We had heard about this pencil sharpener in different ways. Leslie had seen the sharpener in reviews on blogs over the summer. Julia had heard about it by word of mouth. Someone in her school had one, and news about the amazing pencil sharpener spread through the halls. So we decided we’d like to try it out.

We are glad we did!

We love this pencil sharpener because:

You know when to stop sharpening. The handle looses resistance.
It’s quick! It takes about 12 seconds to sharpen a brand new pencil, and 5 to sharpen a dull or broken pencil!
It’s dependable. Same results every time.
The pencils are incredibly sharp.
It’s small and attractive.
It can be bolted to your table.
It doesn’t overheat like an electric one.

Here are some reactions we received from our students:

“Whoa!”
“That sharpener’s better than the other one.”
“Cool.”
“That’s so sharp!”
“I’m going to ask Santa for a pencil sharpener like that!”
and a LOT of ::::::::gasp:::::::::

Collectively we’ve had about 8 pencil sharpeners in our classrooms over the past 5 years. We are glad to say we’ve finally found one that we are happy with! We recommend it to any teacher, or to any person buying a present for a teacher this holiday season! And teachers, go ahead and pin it to your wish list on Pinterest. (And then if you don’t get one this holiday season… go ahead and order one. You’ll be glad you did!)

To get your pencil sharpener visit Troy (a teacher himself!) at Classroom Friendly Supplies!

Happy Sharpening!

Best Gifts I’ve Received (Julia)

Posted on November 17, 2012 by 2busybrunettes

With the holiday season approaching (or has it already arrived?) many of us have gifts on the brain! I thought I would share with you some of my favorite gifts I have received over the years.

Grandmother’s Cookbook

My grandmother loved to cook and experiment with recipes in the kitchen. Unfortunately, she passed away before I learned to cook. My mom gave me this cookbook at my wedding shower, and I boo-hooed like a baby. I’m so thankful to have these hand written recipes from her. It’s great to still have her cooking influence with me as I experiment in the kitchen.

Memory Jar

Leslie compiled this memory jar for me a few years ago. They are filled with hand-written memories on scrapbook paper cards. I like to save them for a day when I’m just really missing my sis!

Ornament

I have sooooo many ornaments. My parents only had one ornament on their tree their first Christmas. My mom was so depressed by that fact that she made sure that wouldn’t happen to either of her girls. So again, I have many ornaments. A lot of them are special to me because they are tied to certain memories, but one of my favorites is this golf cart. Joshua and I got married at a golf resort, so my parents found this golf cart and adorned it with tulle and a replica of the sign on our golf cart. Too cute!

Homemade Stockings

Joshua made these stockings for me when we had been dating almost a year. I thought it was the sweetest thing- especially since his grandmother helped him. Since stockings are something that you use year after year, it told me that “We’re in this for the long haul.” It was a definite tug at the heartstrings.

If you haven’t noticed already, most of these gifts have a common theme- memories. I think memories are precious, and there’s no sweeter gift than something that brings your back to those special times. They have a homemade element to them too, which shows that personal touches are special to me.

So as you are racking your brain for a just-right gift this year, maybe you can find something (or make something) that brings your loved-ones some sweet memories.

Sometimes the best gifts aren’t the most expensive ones, but the ones that are priceless!

Happy Holidays,

Wedding photography by Allison Jansen

An Anniversary Gift to ‘Tree’sure

Posted on May 31, 2012 by 2busybrunettes

It’s roughly a week until mine and Joshua’s fourth anniversary. Knowing me, you probably think I’m about to post the gift I’m giving him this year. Wrong! We opted out of gifts this year and took a trip instead. We traveled to the river city of San Antonio last week. Time is what’s most precious to us right now (him being in anesthesia school) so a trip seemed most appropriate.. especially when our breaks overlapped! That never happens! Actually back in March or so when I asked Josh if we could go somewhere during our summer break he said, “Yeah, I think we could do something that day.” Day!? Luckily it ended up being about 6 days.

We had a wonderful time in San Antonio riding bikes, visiting the historic missions, walking the romantic river walk, and riding the river taxis. It’s a place I’d definitely recommend to visit!

Beautiful river walk. Now that I’m home, I wish I’d taken more pictures of it! We ate at the cafe pictured, Casa Rio.

Cute Mexican papel picado bunting over El Mercado

Isn’t this a beautiful bike ride?

Stopping for a pic a Mission Concepción

Want to know how to get a picture of the Alamo with no people in it? Shout, “FREE ICE CREAM THAT WAY!” Ok, that’d probably do the trick (It was HOT), but actually we took this picture a little before 8:00 am. NO ONE was out there! That might be because it doesn’t open until 9, but there was no one anywhere on the streets. (That’s my kind of bike ride if you ask me! The less objects/people to hit, the better!)

Lovely extended arm picture in front of the Alamo doors. No way we were paying for the professional one they took!

Ok, so I totally didn’t intend for this to be a post about our trip to San Antonio. I guess I got carried away. I just loved it so much!

I actually want to share with you what I gave Joshua last year:

Since we had been married “tree” years I went with a gift that had three parts and had to do with trees. I know, I know, the traditional wedding anniversary gift for three years is leather. Does anyone actually go by that? Anyway, since Joshua was about to start school, I also went with a wallet friendly gift (In fact, I found these tiles in the teacher’s lounge at school!).

These were just plain white tiles that, like I said, I found in the teacher’s lounge. To make them personal, I decorated them using paint pins. (The poem I found online.. not my own!) To make it water and heat-resistant, I used pour-on. During this step, some of the marker smeared. One brand held true, and one didn’t, and I wish I could remember which was which! So if you’d like to do something like this, just test it out on a scrap piece. However, pour-on has proved to be a very effective product. We’ve been using the coasters on our night stand and the trivet (of course) in the kitchen and they’ve held up magnificently.

In order to protect the surfaces these would be used on, I adhered strips of cork on the back.

Along with the coasters and trivet, I also made a time capsule to keep little mementos in.

Again, I used a paint pin to decorate this tin. I did not, however, salvage this tin from the teacher’s lounge! Nope. I got it at Hobby Lobby.

Joshua actually loves this. Before we left for San Antonio he said, “Maybe we can buy something to put in our tin!” I said, “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t buy something to be special. Something becomes special through events.”

So what’s in our tin?

Well, let’s see. If you care to know, there is:

a beaver stuffed animal Joshua bought me when we were first dating to commemorate an inside joke from our first date
The clicker from the car where we had our first kiss. (awww!)
a rose from my wedding bouquet.
the wedding rice that we picked out of our hair.
a shell from our honeymoon.
a paint chip that I used to pick the color for the backing of our built-in bookshelves. It made the cut because after about 3 days I decided I didn’t like the color and we redid it! So it stands for Joshua’s patience with me!

Wow.. I think everyone that reads this needs to share something personal about themselves, because I feel like I just got really intimate with you guys!

What’s your favorite anniversary gift?

Oh, and just because I’m curious:

I’m linking up at:

2busybrunettes

Category Archives: Gift Ideas

One Sharp Teacher Gift Idea