Apple For the Teacher

With back to school just around the corner, Peanut and I wanted to create a gift for his teacher. It is also number 5 on his back to school countdown can. You can read all about that here. Count Down Can


We decided to go with our version of the traditional Apple gift. Using two bottles from pop bottles, we came up with this!

mind the glue spot, it wasn't quite dry when I took this picture

I originally saw this somewhere else, but I cannot remember where, if anyone knows please let me know so I can give proper credit!


I love how it turned out, so simple and cute. Best of all because it was an easy craft Peanut was able to do the majority of the work.


Now, I did say this wasn't your traditional apple, we filled it with Hershey's Kisses and Hugs. .

Using Photoshop, I created a little label that reads, teacher's cannot live on apples alone, but hugs and kisses as well. Happy First Day of School Mrs. Smith!

Not bad for a budget friendly present! To make, we collected two soda pop bottles, we happened to have green ones, but clear would have probably been better! We painted half of the bottle and then let dry. Since Peanut was the main one doing this I do not have step by step pictures, it's hard to help and take pictures! Why can't moms have four arms? Would make like so much easier!  


Back to the instructions:  I cut the bottles on the edge of the paint and kept the tops. Gently, I fit the pieces to together and kept trimming away until I got the shape that I was looking for. Due to the fact that each bottle is different, I did it this way to make sure it looked like an apple and not a red blob. Once, I got the fit I liked, took about three tries, I drew a line on the bottle, a little higher than I wanted. This gave me some breathing room when Peanut was cutting! We all know how straight six year olds can cut! Once we had our two apple halves, Peanut painted one more coat to fill in any gaps that we had. We ended up with a total of three coats of paint. Spray paint would have worked better but I can just see what that would have looked like. or I should say what my yard would have looked like! 


Using the top of one of the bottles, I drew a leaf pattern and Peanut cut it out. Glue it to the top of the apple. Fill with your chocolate treats. Using a plastic treat bag, (an extra from a previous birthday party), we wrapped the apple and tied the tag with some ribbon. 


A for effort and A for apple! 




Update: Many of you asked, how I wrapped it for the trip to school: Here you go: