I have been trying to dream up a practical back to school gift for the girls' teachers, and as I was digging through my Haven Swag I came upon a wooden "assemble it yourself" kit from Home Depot.

I knew I could transform it (and personalize it) into a teacher gift using my Silhouette and since this month's Silhouette Challenge theme was "school" I finally got motivated enough to throw it together.

Since I couldn't find the kit commercially available, I took down all the measurements (it is super straight forward) so that I could duplicate it out of cheap pine lumber if I wanted to make more.

Here is everything I needed:



But since you are going to make this on your own, here is what you ACTUALLY need:


The notched boards are the interior jar divider, so slide them together to form an “X” (you don’t need any nails or anything.)  Use the remaining 4 boards to form a box (held together with 1 inch finishing nails):

Attach the box to the plywood base with 2 nails per side and slide in the divider.  And it is finished!  You can sand the edges at this point since if your cuts are like the ones I had, they will be a little rough:

Next I stained the box (looking back I would have stained the wood before assembly since it was a PAIN to get into the bottom of the box, but I didn’t think about it until it was too late.

I used Ebony stain by Minwax, and I used only one coat since I liked the way it looked.  This is the same stain I used on my kitchen island (three coats) and you can see how different it would look with more coats.


I wanted to personalize the box for our teacher, so I used the “Learning Curve” font from dafont to cut out her name in white vinyl.  I used Oracal 631 since I knew it wouldn’t get much wear and tear.


Ta-Dahhhh:


Next I needed to ‘upgrade’ the mason jars which went inside the box, so I cut stencils out of contact paper in the shape of labels (this is the type I use: Shelf liner from Dollar Tree).


I applied them to the front of the mason jar and then wrapped the rest of the jar in aluminum foil (EASIER THAN TAPING) so I could spray them with chalkboard paint.


I took them to the garage, and sprayed them inside of a cardboard box, to contain the mess:


 The finished product:


I filled them with school supplies and labeled each jar:


You also can included things in the box that didn’t require a mason jar (like glue or paints etc):

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects for this Month's Challenge?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!
1. Weekend Craft // 2. From Wine to Whine // 3. Life After Laundry // 4. Adventures in All Things Food // 5. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 6. Sowdering About // 7. The Kim Six Fix // 8. Architecture of a Mom // 9. greylustergirl.com // 10. Please Excuse My Craftermath // 11. Simply Kelly Designs // 12. My Paper Craze // 13. Sweet Tea & Saving Grace // 14. Black and White Obsession // 15. Ginger Snap Craft // 16. It Happens in a Blink // 17. Creative Ramblings // 18. Little Blue's Room

Or to see some of my other silhouette projects you can go here.