Teacher Thank-You Books

I'm still somewhat new to the whole teacher gift thing. I actually didn't know this was a "thing" until about a week before the end of T's kindergarten year. Since then, I've learned a little (teachers really don't like kitschy, teacher-y crap), experimented some, and researched a lot (yes - it's what I do!).

This year in particular, with the school closing, and at least one of the kids' teachers being laid off, I wanted to do something really special and memorable. I happened upon this idea (scroll down to see the money book), but decided that there was no way in the world I was going to be able to round up contributions from most of the parents, so decided to do an adapation of the book, but have it bound into a real book. Great idea! Now to implement it - oh, and of course it's May 18 by this time, with June 9th the last day of school.

So, hurry hurry, research where to get a book made online (Lulu.com - best prices), make up a questionnaire form (print - edit - edit again - print - edit - edit - done!) - 1 for each class, print a million of them, try to figure out how to get forms filled out by kids and turned back to me in time, decide to just go in to class and have them fill them out there (duh! Thanks Cindy!), email teachers to ask when I can come in for a few minutes for a "special project", get camera ready to take pics of kids, buy candy to bribe children to fill out forms, rush to school with girls in tow, get T's class done (dang, those kids are rowdy!), wait around a bit, get Mace's class done (wow, that class loves the baby!), go home, scan each page in, re-scan with proper settings, re-scan and do NOT save as a PDF (arrrggghhh!!), paste scanned images into Word doc, go online and discover page size for book is not the same as letter-size page, re-format all Word docs (arrrrggghhh!!), figure out which kid pictured goes with which form (I know many, but not all), insert pictures into form, re-size pictures repeatedly, re-format pages to add page with kids' names to meet minimum page length for books - then repeat with Mace's class (slightly faster the second time), discover Word docs need to be saved as PDF prior to upload with Lulu, find a free PDF maker, make errors with PDF maker, find out about embedded fonts (arrrrggghh!!), decide to skip that step, upload first file, have website crash a couple of times, get it uploaded, design book covers - BTW, time is now 10:30 pm on May 24, the last day to submit to have enough cushion for printing and shipping back to me -  (What? I have to have a blurb on the back cover? Crap! Think of something quick!), find teacher pics on kids' class pictures, scan and add those, chat with Lulu support regarding page layout - 1 book done! - repeat with Book #2 and done! at 11:45 pm.

Then to wait and hope that I didn't miss something! June 3 they arrive (yay! no more waiting!) and they look awesome! I'm so excited to have the kids give them to their teachers!