With this being Parker-Grace’s first REAL school year, where she gets to experience it in it’s full glory – as in all the holidays, and special outings, dress-ups and preps. Meaning this shall be her very first school Valentines Day. And whilst my energies have not been the most awesome of late, there is no way Im dropping the ball on this one! Nnnnope, I had my A-game going with Morgan-Lee back in the day, and Im not about to succumb to any ol’ stereo types of successive kids either – especially the middle child one…But in reality there is just so little time in the day that I definitely need something that’s relatively quick and easy, wont eat into the already little time I have with my kids, but that is still personalized, wont cost an arm and a leg, enables the kids to be involved, AND is still super cute.
A long list, yes. So now you may ask, what could possibly tick all those boxes? Well, ladies and gents, I give you….
These Beary cute treat bags for teachers and class mates!
And whats great is that you don’t have to be a Annie Lebovitz to make these work! I love them. They’re not perfect – far from it. But I still love them. And my kids loved making them, and mostly, Im pretty darn sure their friendies will love receiving them.
Of course since, Im all about equal opportunities (and probably a sucker for punishment) I made for both kids’ classmates, but I swear it was super easy and shouldn’t take up that much time. You could to do it all TODAY and still be in time for V-day. In fact you could start tomorrow, and still make it for Vday the next day. (Edit: Please note, I drafted this post sunday night, intending to post Monday morning, but…#momlife happened)
The basic steps of the process are:
1. Take cute pix of you kids.
2. Apply the photo Editing tip.
3. Create card using your choice of software tools. (paint can also work!)
4. Place goodies into treat bags
5. Cut cards, and assemble.
6. Boom. Done.
Of course if you’re a photoshop whizz you wouldn’t need to have separate steps 3 and 4. But then again, if you were a photoshop whizz you would also not need this tutorial at all. I however, am yet to find time to figure out Photoshop, and so instead, mess around with phone apps instead with great success. (because its far less time intensive) So if you’re like me in this, then this is totally for you!
Also, if youre looking for the easiest way to change the background of a photograph using an app – not just for this project but for any other project- I’ve got ya back! This is honestly the easiest one I’ve stumbled across. (read on!)
Also please note, that I am in no way some sort of sophisticated photog who has all these cool tricks and pieces of software. Nope. Im just your regular ol’ mamarazzi who likes certain style of pic, but does not (yet) have the time to actually go about learning these cool, slick tricks out there. Nope. What I got are hacks. Like in the complete raw sense of the word – HACK! And these hacks work for me, and I know they’ll work for you! So here you go:
What you need:
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- 1. Your teddy prop (or any other prop you’d like to use for some clever word play, doesn’t have to be “beary much”)
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- 2. Camera
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- 3. Download “Change Photo Background” app from your app store
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- 4. Card editing software ( you can even mess around with word or paint)
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- 5. Scissors
- 6. stapler
Method
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- -Take a bunch of photos till you’re feeling like you’re covered. (using good lighting always helps – so either in a shaded area outdoors, or in a well-lit area indoors)
Heads up, this is where part of that nice hack comes in. Not just for this project, but for ANY time you’d like to change or edit the background, THIS is the app you want:
-Use the Change Photo Background app to cut out just your kid – we want the background to be black. (Although you could choose any background you prefer)
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- • Be sure to zoom in tightly to get the best cut out of your child. Take your time.
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• If you make a mistake- chill- just use the repair tool to undo it.
-Once you’re happy with cut out, let’s move onto getting your background sorted.
To get a black ground, mostly because it was late at night, and I didn’t feel like hunting, I used my phone camera, covered the lens with my finger and took a photo. And taadaaa, a black background is born. (See I told ya: HACK!)
Then set this black pic as the background.
– Once you’re satisfied with the picture, you can either use CANVA or any other tool to create your label. Just be sure to have the “your friend” part upside down.
-Once printed and cut, I let my girls sign their names to it. Perfect opportunity for writing skills. Of which Parker doesn’t yet have much, but is getting there. (this was a labour of love people. It takes her about on average 5 minutes to write her name…she had 17 to go…*insert look of disguised despair*..like I said, a labour of love.
They actually loved this, as it gave them a sense of really being a part of these gifts for their little friends.
-The girls then had a nice assembly line going by filling up the treat bags with teddy gummies. (with washed hands of course!) This was a perfect time for counting and maths – in which Morgy surprised me with her quick calculations and applications of maths. (think multiplications, subtractions and additions)
-Thereafter, I stapled it all together.
And taaaa- daaaa….
You got yourself some pretty chuffed little Valentines there!
Be sure to have extra – if your kids are anything like ours, they’ll also want their own. (Also, because, if you’re anything like me, you probably ate half the stash!)
Happy Valentines lovelies! May your days be filled with love – both in the receiving and in the spreading thereof! X
Ah man such a brilliant idea!
Darn why didn’t I see this post sooner???… I got up at 3am to bake n decorate 70 cupcakes for the kids’ schools, whilst still b’feeding my lil guy in between.
We just just made it in time for schools n work.
This is definitely on my to do list for next year. Thanks for sharing!
No way! That’s crazy! #supermom
I’m all about the ease factor ?