End of year gift. 2019

I am very late with this post,  I started writing it last year but then forgot to complete it.

Over the years I have made dozens of these personalized pencil cases for the children in my spelling groups. The children had to earn so many stamps over the course of the year to win one. The children loved them. Every now and again I might bump into a child that received one of these many years ago and most of them take great delight in telling me they still have theirs. Which is always lovely to hear.

These particular pencil cases  were made for the boys I escort to school.

For those of you  that don't know, my second job is an escort for children that go to school by taxi.

For the last 11 months  I have had the privilege of  escorting two lovely boys to school and home each day.

I have grown very fond of both of them over the past months.

So as an end of year gift last year 

I made them both a personalized pencil case.

Theo is mad about cats, especially calico cats. So his  pencil case had to have a cat on it.

  

Archie has a dog of a similar looking breed to the one embroidered here  but  black. I didn't have the range of black  and grey threads to embroider him in black , So I had to go with the golden version.

I also made them both a bookmark each with their names on the reverse.

I  lined the cases to prevent pencils damaging the embroidery and  to make them more robust.

I filled the cases with pencils  an eraser, a sharpener,  water colour crayons a paint  brush, glue stick and  other bits and pieces. 

I  have really missed those boys the last few weeks.

At the moment schools here closed to most children and I am being shielded for 12 weeks  due to the Covid19 virus, …  who knows maybe longer .

But I am  really hoping I will get to see the boys before the end of this academic year.

UPDATE.

Shielding was extended until  the end of July so sadly, I never managed to catch up with the boys to say goodbye,  wish them luck in their new schools or to thank them for being such a delight to work with.  I guess I will have to put a card in the post to them both.. I will really miss them next year.