Teachers play a vital and invaluable role in shaping young minds, often going above and beyond to make learning a fulfilling experience. When you want a teacher appreciation gift, Christmas or birthday package, or any time you’re celebrating someone who pours into your kids’ lives nothing is better than a homemade gift for your favorite teacher. If you’re like us, you want to find a way to express your gratitude beyond a gift card and healthier than store-bought sweet treats. Handmade teacher gifts are the perfect gift option and carry a personal touch that creates thoughtful gifts a store-bought item lacks. Here are some creative and heartfelt ideas for a handmade gift that teachers will cherish, and that you can make yourself.
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Why Make Homemade Teacher Gifts
Creating homemade gifts for a favorite teacher is not only a thoughtful way to show appreciation but also allows for gift ideas that allow for personalized touches. If it’s within your budget to extend gifts to other school staff members, we often try to include administrators, janitors, our church staff and Sunday School teachers, and so on because all of those people are pouring into our kids’ lives. This is a sweet gift gesture for those who go unappreciated at times.
By focusing on all-natural, safe, and practical ingredients, you can craft a wonderful gift that reflects care and consideration.
Here’s why these homemade gift ideas are a great choice for you to consider putting together for your favorite teachers and educators:
1. Personalization and Thoughtfulness
Homemade gifts allow you to tailor each item to the teacher’s preferences and seasonal trends. For example, if I know a certain teacher likes coffee, I’ll do a coffee vanilla body scrub. When you know their personality or something small like that about the person, you can customize the basic DIY you’re doing with a scent that speaks to them. Whether it’s a batch of all-natural essential oil fragrances, organic bath salts, or allergy-friendly body care products, personal touches speak volumes. Include a handwritten note and you will have something one-of-a-kind.
2. Safe and Natural High-Quality Ingredients
In today’s world, many consumers are increasingly conscious of what they apply to their skin or bring into their homes. By making gifts at home, you can ensure that all ingredients are all-natural and free from harmful chemicals. This will take your teacher appreciation gift to the next level.
For example, when creating bath bombs or scrubs, you can use ingredients like essential oils and nourishing carrier oils, providing a safe, organic gift for teachers. So many things on the shelf are rancid, poor quality, or adulterated. Making handmade gifts means you control the ingredients which goes beyond just a cute idea and becomes a matter of safety and wellness.
3. Fostering Creativity and Skills
Making DIY teacher gifts at home encourages creativity and can be a fun idea and an engaging activity for kids. We can let the kids write heartfelt notes, help in the crafting process, label all the DIYs, and assemble the packages for their favorite teachers. They feel a sense of pride in creating a special handmade gift for their teachers and making something beyond just favorite flowers or basic school supplies. Getting creative with the DIYs beyond basic bath salt recipes, is sure to become a favorite gift.
Homemade Teacher Appreciation Gift Ideas
We always make all-natural thoughtful gifts for the holidays and the end of the school year and include things beyond just feeding a sweet tooth or giving a restaurant gift card. We want our teacher appreciation gifts to be an adorable gift that is memorable. This also includes our children’s teachers and school staff.
One of the elements that is the same each time is a container with a personalization option. Instead of a paper wrapping bag, I will use a personalized tote bag, a coffee cup or other holder. I hide all these beautiful DIY teacher gifts in it, and then put a ton of tissue paper in it. I never skimp on crisp, clean tissue paper!
This makes the holder itself part of the practical gifts we give each teacher. I love Personalization Mall for this part since they will ship bulk orders to me if I’m gifting for several people at once.
Here are some of my top teacher gift ideas that you can make yourself right at home. Don’t forget to label each DIY clearly with your label maker instead of a sticky note that comes loose, or having them guess what is what. You know that for us, label makers are the new sticky notes.
I do these gift sets at Christmas and at the end of the year, for Teacher Appreciation Gifts. So the round of gifts at Christmas often include personalization with essential oil blends for that time of year. I use oils such as fir, pine, ginger, frankincense, etc. See some examples of how we put the oils together into premade blends in our diffuser recipe Christmas blend guide section.
In the same way, I use homemade essential oil blends that fit a summer vibe for the end of the school year. These would include oils such as citrus, florals like geranium, and garden oils like peppermint and rosemary. You’ll see that vibe reflected in some of these recipes below but you can adapt the oils to fit your seasonal or personal preferences.
The Energy & Focus Inhaler
Equipment
- 1 Precut organic cotton pad
- 1 Aromatherapy inhaler
Materials
- 10 drops rosemary essential oil
- 5 drops pine essential oil
- 5 drops May Chang essential oil (Litsea cubeba)
Instructions
- Drop all the essential oils directly into the inhaler tube. Shake gently to blend.
- Then place the cotton pad wick into the inhaler tube.
- Alternatively, you can drop the blend into a glass bowl, roll the cotton pad in the oils to absorb them, and then insert it into the inhaler using tweezers.
Coconut Vanilla Body Cream DIY
When thinking of sweet gift ideas for teachers, consider how dry skin can get when on-the-go. This is a silky-smooth moisturizer that features the beachy combination of vanilla and coconut. This lotion sinks into the skin, giving you a beautiful glow.
See how to make one of our most popular skin moisturizing DIYs to include in this handmade gift basket. You’ll note that above the whipped body butter is white, but in the recipe you’ll see it is yellow. The final color of your whipped body butter will depend on whether you use white shea butter or cream color shea butter.
The Soothing Bug Bite Balm and Itch Relief Roll-On
This is ideal for on-the-go skin-soothing and a thoughtful gift for teacher appreciation before summer break for anyone who loves a day in the sun. This DIY teacher gift includes a blend of peppermint and lavender essential oils which will soothe the skin and provide cooling relief. I’ve found that a half-and-half mix of fractionated coconut oil and jojoba oil works best.
Here are the instructions for bug bite & itch relief roll-on.
Immune-Boosting Hand Sanitizer
This is a teacher appreciation gift that we consider more like classroom essentials and a must-have for anyone working with kids! It kills germs without leaving the hands dry. Plus it smells amazing because of the essential oils.
We have a variation of hand sanitizer with aloe or without aloe so you can make your favorite version and get creative with your gift ideas.
After-Sun Spritzer
After Sun Spritz
Equipment
- 1 4 ounce spray bottle
Materials
- ½ cup unscented witch hazel
- 2 tablespoons pure aloe vera gel
- 10 drops lavender essential oil
- 10 drops peppermint essential oil
Instructions
- Put the essential oil drops into the spray bottles and then top off with the rest of the ingredients.
- Shake to mix.
- Don’t forget to label the bottle!
Gardener’s Sugar Scrub
Gardener’s Sugar Scrub
Equipment
- 1 Large glass bowl
- 1 Canning funnel
- 1 8-ounce glass jars
Materials
- 1 cup organic fair trade sugar
- ⅓ cup coconut oil, extra-virgin AND unrefined
- 32 drops rosemary essential oil
- 32 drops peppermint essential oil
Instructions
- Combine the sugar and coconut oil in a bowl, stirring fully with a spoon.
- Add essential oils and stir again.
- Use a canning funnel to transfer to a glass jar. Enjoy!
This list of homemade gift ideas will help you make thoughtful teacher appreciation packages that are one-of-a-kind, handmade gifts you’ll be excited to give. You can use any of the all-natural DIYs from our website to mix and match as desired. Whatever else you decide to add, the handmade gifts and personalized touches will be so meaningful to the educator in your child’s life.
