Washi Tape For Your Teacher Gift

Did you know that today is Wishy Washi Wednesday? I love washi tape and now own just a few rolls ( a few million to tell the truth.) What can you do with this stuff? Obviously it is perfect for decorating plain containers and this project took me very little time. Interested? Stick with me. I decided to make accessories to go on a teacher's desk. If your own child is high maintenance you might want to show up the first day of school with a gift! Right?

You will need a variety of  coordinating washi tapes. This is no big deal. You can find them in Walmart and they are not expensive. I am a crazy Starbucks coffee drinker and these little iced coffees can be found anywhere. They are a perfect shape for holding pencils and you got a coffee drink as your well deserved treat. Win-win here. Wash it out well, take the labels off with Goo Gone (in the Target Dollar Spot) and dry it off well. Now start at the bottom of the jar and work your way up. Begin in the same place each time you wrap the tape and overlap it at the end, cutting it cleanly so it looks nice. When you start wrapping be sure to do it tightly for nicer results. You screwed up already? Remember that washi tape can be removed easily and re-positioned. Yup, it rocks. Go slowly and make a nice design. Tapes can be layers on top of each other if you want to get snazzy. That was a piece of cake and it looks amazing... right? moving on...

Now you need to make fancy-smantzy pencils or why bother with this. This is the easiest part. Cutting the tape is the hard part and you know how to use scissors. I lay it right down on the sticky side, cut it off at the bottom neatly, and start rolling it on a hard surface. Smooth it out and you just made the cutest pencil. Remember to start the tape below the metal piece at the top and to trim it neatly. Got the hang of this? Mix up your coordinating colors and start wrapping. I made little flags at the top (it can cover up some imperfections hem, hem) and cut a "v" into it. Adorable and a nice touch of cuteness. Now the pencils might be too short for the jar so here's the secret. Stuff white tissue paper in the bottom (use a chopstick to get it all the way down to the bottom) and this will work like a charm. Put the pencils in, tie the bottle with some raffia and add the label on a cheap wood skewer. Cut the point off of the skewer so the teacher does not end up with a hole in her finger and a major injury! Just sayin'.  I am giving you the labels here so you can finish this project without stressing.

Are you still with me or are you on someone else's blog with a useful activity? Just kidding. Excuse the crummy photos but that's all I could come up with while I was working on this. The next part involves small canning jars you can find anywhere and you always thought could be used for something else (don't share that with Granny). I used this size but they even come smaller, but who knew? You can wrap them with coordinating washi tape but where it says "Bell" on the glass, I made that the back of the jar and the place where I started and ended. Does that make sense? Probably not... clear as mud. Take the jar lid out of the metal doo- hickey and cover that in strips of tape any way that you want. Just be sure to cover the entire piece. Go take a break... do not leave me for the day. You can get this puppy finished.

Trim carefully around the lid. Insert it back into the metal and voila... looks gorgeous. I filled these with colored clips and push pins that only cost a dollar a package in Staples. They have lots of nice colors to pick from. I just added a label on the front of each little jar and that's it... a gift any teacher would love. There's only one problem. Once she see's that you can do this she will be calling on you for other stuff.

Have a great Wishy Washi Wednesday friends. Now go get some tape... Don't forget to grab the labels.