Gifts for the Students

I have been volunteering in my daughter's class (and the class down the hall) since the beginning of the year in a great program called Rocket Readers.

About a dozen parents and grandparents descend on the class once a week for a half-hour, each take a couple of kids and then the kids read to the adults.

My Rocket Readers have made such incredible progress this year, but it's easy to see just how much work it is to teach 1st grade.

These kids are at so many different levels!

Today is the final day, and a party, and I made a bookmark for each kid.

A long time ago, at least a decade, I saw a Good Thing on Martha Stewart's show about embossing velvet ribbon using an iron and rubber stamps.

I am not a stamper, but one of my previous jobs was assembling rubber stamps for a very small independent stamp manufacturing company (when I say very small, I mean it, we worked out of the owner's living room) and I have a small collection of stamps that I liked and kept around.

My favorite designer was Hattie Lace - and I see that you can still order her stamps through Inky Antics which was the business where I worked!

Anyway, if you place the velvet ribbon on top of the rubber stamp

and then iron through the ribbon for about 15 seconds

the stamp will crush the pile and you have an embossed ribbon!

(alright, I know, that's not the same color ribbon, but I was taking kind of erratic photos. I got a phone call in the middle)

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

I have a set of alphabet stamps, so I put each kid's name on their bookmark.

The last step was trimming the top and bottom of the ribbon with pinking shears.

A totally easy and fun project that the kids can use for a nice long time.