End of the Year Teachers Gift Ideas and Free Printables

I posted about the photo books I made at the beginning of the week.  I made those for Nandini's class.  Of course I had to make something for Avinash's class as well. 

This was another gift I made on behalf of the whole class.  One mom expressed concern about photo books being placed in a drawer and forgotten.  So I decided to switch gears and make something different, I still think photo books are a nice keepsake.

One of the other parents volunteered to come in and take pictures of all the children.  This worked a little better than waiting for so many parents to send in photos. Plus all the photos had a uniform background and similar lighting.

I created a simple photo collage of all the pictures.  I had an odd number so I used one of the free Project Life Teacher Appreciation cards to fill in that spot.  I love the little pop of color it adds. I printed it on matte photo paper, my go to for enlargements.

The class picked a poem called Unity and I decided to make it into an overlay using vellum. I also think that this quote I used in Nandini's book would work really well here too: Invest in the human family, invest in people, build a little community of those you love and who love you.  

I die cut the vellum with Silhouette Cameo, using the shadow set of the Trend font.  It is a paid font, but I have some free font alternative ideas here.  If you don't have a silhouette, you could print on the vellum in a shadow font as well for a similar effect.

Materials:
glass frame
photo collage, I use Picasa (it's free!) photo editing software to make mine
matte photo paper
set of free printables (Download the free printables here.)
vellum, die cut with Silhouette cameo or printed
white cardstock. 

I had one more person I need to thank.  Randy is not a regular teacher in Nandini's class, but she has a serious bond with him.  They are just so adorable together.  I tried to casually ask him for a picture with her.  I used another free printable to make a card for him.  I made a 4x6 collage with the 3x4 picture and free PL card.  Again I printed on matte photo paper, added a bit of washi and wrote a note on the inside.  

 This is what the full set of free printables look like.  They are designed by Paislee Press for Project Life and just awesome!  I know teacher appreciation week is over but I think these are still great for end of the year gifts and cards.