A Teacher Can't Live by Apples Alone Teacher Gift

You know those ideas that you have that seem so easy when you come up with them?  Well, this was one of those....but it was also one that was so darn hard to execute.  And not because the project itself was hard, it just seemed like everything went wrong. 

But in the end, I love how it turned out and will be sad to let this little beauty go visit another home.  Hopefully my kids' teachers will love it as much as I.

When I saw these lovely candlesticks on Pinterest, I knew I had to have a set and wanted to play with the idea of how to do them on other items.  It took me a while to track down the original pin and where it was pinned from (can I say "Pet Peeve"---pin from the SOURCE people!)  It was a message board with a little bit of direction...of course, I can't find it now, so I'll have to keep looking and let you know when I find it.

The idea said to use regular Elmer's school glue and food color to achieve the sea glass effect.

I mixed mine up in an old sour cream container with a lid since the original poster said she had to put several coats on the glass to make it look so pretty.

My first attempt turned out BEAUTIFUL, but way too pink for the apple look I was going for.  I'm glad because now I have a jar for myself, but it ended up costing me a day.  I had to go home and find some red food coloring instead of the rose color I had tried.

My second attempt turned out better.  I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but it's a beautiful red sea glass color.  In the light, it is so pretty.

I filled the jar with Hershey Hugs candy.  It took about 1/2 a pound to fill one of the small mason jars.

During all my stress time trying to get everything together for this project, I spray painted the lid to the jar and a small empty thread spool.  (At least I got something accomplished during that week when I couldn't get it all together.)

I glued the spool on top of my jar to look like an apple.  (If you stretch your imagination...you can see it right?)

To finish off my project, I printed out the tags that went to our Teacher Hugs Candy Topper set.

Using the curly ribbon style that I showed you on my Candy Bouquet tutorial way back when, I tied the tag to the top of the "stem" on the candy jar apple.

Now it's ready to go make a teacher's day with a few hugs!