Christmas Gift Idea for Colleagues

This past weekend, I met my new best friend... Mod Podge! My second grade teammates decided to do a Pinterest-inspired gift exchange this year. It was so much fun looking all over Pinterest for the perfect gift for them. I came across this awesome custom teacher stool and fell in love with the idea.

 

Each of my teammates have a theme in their classroom so I decided to design a stool around their theme. Mrs. Mathews has an owl theme, Mrs. Verhoff has a jungle theme, and Mrs. Lee has a star theme. Here are some pics of the finished products!

 

 

 

 

 

These were so easy to make! I started with a 24" wood bar stool from Wal-Mart. My husband spray painted them for me and then once they were dry, I began designing the top of the stool. All I used were scrapbooking supplies- paper, stickers, etc. I put a little bit of Mod Podge on the top of the stool and then placed the paper on top. The trick here is to make sure that the paper is totally flat with no bubbles underneath. Make sure to push all of the bubbles out before the Mod Podge dries. Then, cover the top of the paper with Mod Podge- use lots!! It goes on white but will dry completely clear so don't worry. I then worked on the rungs by cutting scrapbook paper and Mod-Podging (is that a word?!) them around the rung. Next, I applied a liberal amount of the Mod Podge on top of the paper. For the last step, I painted stars and flowers on two of the stools, and used pawprint stickers on the last stool. Voila! It was super easy and I love the way they turned out! I am now dying to make one for my classroom, but I bought all of the stools in stock at Wal-Mart so I have to wait for another shipment to come in. I can't wait to make a polka-dot themed stool for my classroom =)

 

Have a great night everyone!