pillow fight.

Oh heavens, it's been forever y'all! But Mad May is over and I have so much to share with y'all. Let's not waste any time getting started, shall we? I know that this post might be a bit too late for some of y'all to use this year, but maybe it's one of those that you can file away for next year! After years of planning and dreaming about this project, I finally took the plunge and created sweet hand print pillowcases for my kids!

I think they turned out completely adorable, but I definitely can't take all of the credit! I actually got the idea for this project from MY second grade teacher who gave us the same thing for our end of the year gifts before those even existed. She was quite the genius! Here's me and my BFF showing off our pillowcases decades ago....looking good...so glad we recently celebrated 22 years of friendship with the birth of her sweet daughter!

For my kids' pillows, I tried to stay as cost-effective as possible (obvi) - it wasn't the cheapest project ever, but here's a list of what I grabbed:

• I purchased the pillowcases from Wal-Mart's "MainStay" line at $5.00 for two pillowcases. 
• I grabbed neon fabric paint at Michael's using my 40% off coupons and my teacher discount. 
• Finally, I purchased a pack of iron-on transfer paper using my Amazon Prime account, so I didn't have to pay for shipping!

All-in-all, I spent about $100 to make these babies, but I think they were totally worth it!

Now let's get to the fun part! Before the painting party, I created an iron-on transfer page for each student with a sweet poem about our friends and applied them to the pillowcases:

 The next day, I took one student at a time (yes, one student at a time), and with the help of a sweet parent, we helped them stamp their hand on each pillowcase. We discovered that their hands needed to have paint applied before every stamp for the best results! Then, after 24 hours, all of the kids went around and signed their hand print on each pillowcase, so that we soon had 21 perfectly painted pillowcases!

Since presentation is everything, I decided to tie a bit of raffia around each student's pillowcase with a little note to them about our year together and how to wash the pillowcase to preserve its colors.

My kids and I both love love love these gifts! I hope that they are something practical for the parents, but also special for the kids, and something that they will hold on to for several years!

I hope that many of you are celebrating summer, but those of you that are in the final countdown, press on! You can do it!