Back To School Project with Wendy Sue Anderson

Hi there friends!  It's Wendy Sue here today, and I am so excited to finally have my turn to share a "Back to School" project with you!!  When you first look at this adorable collection, I would be willing to bet that your mind goes right to pre-school and elementary age children.  Am I right?  Well, I'm here to challenge you to think out of the box!  You see, my daughter will be graduating from high school (gulp!) in a few short weeks...and only a few weeks after that, she will be moving away to begin her college career!  We won't even talk about how emotional this makes me...instead, we will talk about a little something I created for her to take with her.  Summer semester is 8 weeks long - and I wanted to give her a little something for each week of her first college experience.  This is what I came up with:

Yep, you read that right - there are EIGHT treats in that little tiny box!  We all know that treats are rare on a college student's budget...but how fun would it be to know that as each week ends, there's a treat waiting for you?!?  

I cut the box from the "abc's" paper with my Silhouette Cameo.  I sized it slightly larger than the mini pickets that coordinate with the "back to school" collection.

Next, I created a band to wrap around the box.  It's simply a strip of paper, slightly more narrow that the box, then I just folded it around the box, scored the fold lines, and secured the back with a bit of washi tape.  The top is embellished with letter stickers, rub-ons, and cute little sticker icons! 

Now here's the fun part - when the box is opened up, just look at what is inside!

The mini pocket kit comes with 8 reversible pockets (you see, the universe was working with me here!) - so I folded them up to use all 8 designs.  I embellished each pocket with patterned paper, stickers, doodle pops and sprinkle shapes - it was so much fun choosing which items to use!

After creating all of the pockets, I started filling them with gift cards or cash - things any college student (or anyone, for that matter) could use and appreciate! I love that the pockets are just the right size for store and restaurant gift cards!

This would also make a fun "end of school" gift for a teacher - you could do one pocket for each week, or one for each month of summer vacation!

Thanks for stopping in today - I hope I've inspired you to use the "back to school" collection in a fun way!