Nice Parent Gift!

We had a snow day (yay!) on Thursday, but it really put a crimp in my parent gift preparation schedule.  My students were on fast forward on Friday finishing them up, and I even had to deliver one to a student's house today because it hadn't finishing drying by the end of the day yesterday.  I think the gifts turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

On a shopping trip to Marshalls in early December I found a decorated Christmas box that I just fell in love with.  It became the inspiration for a wall hanging that we made for the parents.  My practice one kinda looked like one of those Pinterest fails but I tweaked a couple of things so the student ones turned out better.

Here are the steps:
1. I spray painted the edges of a 8 X 11 artist canvas.  I found these in packs of ten at Michaels.  They were on sale for $14.99 and I used my teacher discount for an additional 15% off.  Also, I had asked each of the students to bring in $2 for Christmas crafts.  The spray paint I used was a gold glitter color.



2. Then the students used white acrylic paint to cover the middle part of the canvas.  I created a stencil to cover the top outside edges so they remained gold.

3. Next I used a gray fabric paint to make a border right along the edge of the white paint.  The students used gray paint to sponge a tree in the center of the white.  I found a tree shape online and adjusted the size to fit on our 8 X 11 canvas.  After the sponge painting was dry, I used white glitter glue to make lines criss-crossing the tree to represent strings of lights.





4. Last, the students decorated the canvas with round silver and white glitter stickers, stars, and snowflakes.  I had found these items at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and JoAnns - all on sale, of course!

The Final Product!  The picture really doesn't do it justice  - they turned out so cute!

Here is a picture of the box that was my inpiration -