How did this happen?

I worked so hard at being prepared this year that I just can’t figure out how I ended up cobbling together teacher's gifts late the night before the school Valentine party. Maybe if I run through the events leading up to that last minute craft-a-thon I’ll figure out where it all went wrong.

Remember how I handmade all of those Valentines? Yes the classmates' cards were done, but I'd used up all of my fans. So I had to figure out something else to do for the teachers. And I had a plan. No really I did. Amaya hosted a playgroup last Thursday.  So I devised a craft involving glitter and hearts for all of her little friends and their siblings to do in between running around the basement laughing like jackals. My thought was to use the project my kids made as cards for their teachers that could go along with a store bought chocolate treat. Teachers--unlike preschoolers--are old enough to decide when they've had too much candy, so I have no qualms about giving them tempting treats. It was a good plan since it took care of multiple items on my to do list and conserved valuable resources—like my sanity.

The execution required the creation of a tray of wonders that would delight the little artists. I knew I'd been successful in my endeavor when I watched their little eyes light upon spying the glue, the glitter, the stickers, the stamps, and the markers that work on any kind of paper instead of those vision-limiting "wonder" markers that require special paper. It was like the lost treasure of the ancient Mayans had been deposited right in our suburban home. 

Before the words "Have at it" had completely formed on my tongue, a craftpalooza was unleashed in my basement. During the process, I was too busy trying to keep Amaya from eating the glue to take pictures, but I did remember to get a shot of the end result.

  Perfectamundo! Stick a box of chocolates on there and you have a perfectly acceptable Valentine for a preschool teacher. So I walked away from the project feeling like I had everything under control. I think that here is where my plan started to go awry.

What got me off track? Snopocalypse. That's what. The stupid snow came Thursday night and then AGAIN on Tuesday night. So I never made it to the store to get the boxes of chocolate.  Suddenly and without warning,  it was the night before the school's Valentine's celebration and there I was scrambling to put something together .But hey, at least I remembered this year, right?

I was saved by three things:

1. A well-stocked scrap room that has enough supplies to make cards for everyone on the planet with paper and ribbon to spare.
2. A great collection of bookmarked blogs that never fails to inspire me.
3. A husband who thinks that 9:00pm is the perfect time to go put air in his tires and is also willing to hop into the convenience store and pick up some Hershey Kisses for his perpetually scatterbrained wife.

When those three ingredients are mixed together at 11:00pm, you get this:

 I was so tired when I took the picture that everything looked blurry to me. I didn't realize that the picture itself was blurry until just now. Sorry about that.The adorable zebra valentines printed for free courtesy of Bunny Cakes--a truly great idea blog.Since the sheet printed 6 cards, I went ahead and made six treat bags to pass out. Everyone appreciates a few kisses, right?

So, I guess that's how it happened. Maybe I should go ahead and start on next year's batch now. You know, just in case?