the perfect last minute teacher & neighbor gifts

For teacher gifts (all teacher gifts- Christmas, birthday, end of year and teacher appreciation) I abide by a simple tried-and true-formula- useful gift card + something kid-made (or in a pinch kid-chosen).

In the past, the kid-made portion has been a yummy treat (this salted caramel sauce is one of our faves to make and give!), a painted planter, a hand written card. But our go-to at Christmas is a kid-made ornament (mostly because it makes my heart so happy each year to hang all my ornaments from former students!).

This year’s version is so cute and easy that we made a whole pile of extras for neighbor and friend gifts as well!The key are these DARLING white ornaments by sugar*paper that we found at Target. They are labeled “gift toppers” and are basically the perfect blank ornament canvas (and the box of two is $3! #winning!).

The natural ‘breaks’ in these ornaments act as dividers for the various patterns and doodles. To further mark off those divisions, we added rows of stripes/dots/scallops at the breaks. Then we doodled a different pattern or shape in each of the sections.

Choosing a color palette beforehand also helped the ornaments not all turn into crazy rainbow explosions (we got down our vintage shiny brite ornaments for color palette inspiration).
I will be honest- I bought all of these ‘ornaments’ that were in stock at my Target. And then, after we finished Round One, we were at another Target at I bought all of theirs as well (so sorry if you live near me. But otherwise, the sugar*paper gift wrap section at your nearest Target is your best friend right now).

Cute, easy, inexpensive, handmade- just so much goodness in these little gems. And now we have our neighbor gifts, our teacher gifts (and even a few friend gifts) ready to go.

ps- This year’s teacher gifts, all packaged and ready for Friday- gift cards, kid-made ornaments, hot cocoa on a stick, chocolate graham crackers all tucked in a berry basket… Target’s dollar bin is both my BFF and enemy right now.