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Ideas for the Home

You are here: Home / Gift Ideas / Christmas Mug Teacher Gift with Free Printable

By Carrie Ypma on December 5, 2014 11 Comments

Christmas Mug Teacher Gift with Free Printable

Gift Ideas

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Often the most meaningful presents are those your kids help make, like this Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Holiday gifts don’t need to be costly.

Teacher gifts at the holidays don’t need to be expensive. Often the most meaningful gifts are ones your children help create, like this Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Last year at Christmas time, my sons were only 3 1/2 and 1 years old, but I wanted to involve them in the creation of gifts for teachers and friends. I also wanted to be able to give the presents widely so I didn’t want them to be too costly to make. We decided to give small jars filled with a special cake mix you can make in a mug with just a little water and a minute in the microwave.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.


Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links for products or services we think you’ll like. This means if you make a purchase from one of these links, we’ll make a small commission at no additional cost to you so we can keep the great ideas for the home coming your way. All opinions expressed are our own, derived from our personal experience.

Although I know many teachers are inundated with mugs at the holidays, I still decided to give a Christmas Mug Teacher Gift last year. I knew I wanted to give the cake mix in recycled baby food jars so I picked up festive mugs at my local dollar store since you need the mug to make the cake. My one year old contributed by emptying baby food jars (everyone needs a job to do, right?). My 3 1/2 year old helped by decorating gift bags with stamps and ink we also got at the dollar store and by filling the baby food jars. I did the rest. It was a team effort all the way around and cost less than $5 per gift. To increase the value we also put a Starbucks gift card in the mugs for my son’s two 3-School teachers.

The jars were filled with 1-2-3 Cake, a recipe I first heard about from The Hidden Pantry. For 1-2-3 Cake, you combine any flavor cake mix with an angel food cake mix. Put three tablespoons in a mug, stir in two tablespoons of water and microwave for one minute. For our Christmas Mug Teacher Gift, I used Dark Chocolate cake mix, but you really can use any flavor cake mix for the 1-2-3 Cake. I tried it with red velvet cake mix at first, thinking it would look festively colored in the jar. Boy was I wrong! Red Velvet cake mix looks sort of brown in powder form, but then it was blood red when we made it. That was definitely not the look I was going for even if it was still delicious.

How to Make the Christmas Mug Teacher Gift

What You Need:

  • Gift bags, white or light colored
  • Christmas rubber stamps
  • Red and green stamp pads
  • Baby food jars or other small containers
  • Silver metallic spray paint
  • 1 Regular cake mix
  • 1 Angel food cake mix
  • Red and green ribbon
  • Red and green Christmas tissue paper
  • Holiday coffee mugs
  • Red and green cardstock, 8 1/2 x 11″

 

Instructions:

1. Prepare the gift bags

Have your child use the rubber stamps and red and green stamp pads to festively decorate white gift bags. My 3 1/2 year old loved doing this part because he could randomly create designs however he wanted. To prevent him from mixing the green and red ink, we did red first, let the bags dry and then added the green stamps.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

I knew the Christmas Mug Teacher Gift would be heavy. Since I got our white gift bags at a local dollar store, I used thick packing tape to reinforce the handles on the inside of the bags, so they wouldn’t break when the someone carries the gift.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

2. Prepare the jars. 

After my one year old emptied the baby food jars, I used Goo Gone to remove any sticky residue from the side of the baby food jars. I just poured a little on a cotton ball and then rubbed until the glass looked as good as new. Then wash the jars in the sink or dishwasher to clean and sanitize them. Let the jars dry completely.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

I then put several coats of silver metallic spray paint on the baby food jar lids to cover the words, pictures and marketing messages. Allow time to dry between coats. Be sure to spray the paint in a well ventilated area.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

3. Fill the jars with cake mix.

Gather the supplies you need including the jars and cake mixes. In a large bowl combine the regular cake mix and the angel food cake mix.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

Use a kitchen funnel to fill each of the baby food jars. I had my son, who was three years old at the time help with this step, so I placed the jar inside another large bowl so we could catch any extra cake mix that fell outside the jar. We used a tablespoon to fill the mugs, so we could count the number of tablespoons. You need 3 tablespoons to create a 1-2-3 Cake, so make sure you put some mulitiple of 3 into each jar (e.g. 9 tablespoons, 12 tablespoons etc.). After you fill each jar, seal it with a lid.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

4. Make instruction cards or get our free printable tags.

If you use dark chocolate cake mix like I did, I’m sharing the instruction cards I created and used as a FREE printable gift.

Exclusive for Kenarry subscribers, receive the FREE printable 3-2-1 Dark Chocolate Cake-in-a-Mug Printable by signing up below. You’ll get the download link sent directly to your inbox.

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You can also join our Idea Insider VIP Club to get unlimited access to the full vault of unique and beautiful printables we offer to make gift giving, holidays and everyday life more special. A lifetime membership in our Idea Insider VIP Club is a great way to save time and money with easy access to hundreds of printable cards, tags, wall art and more right at your fingertips.

Once you have the file, print the 3-2-1 Dark Chocolate Cake-in-a-Mug instruction cards on red and green card stock.

If you decide to create your own tag/card, the instructions are easy:

1-2-3 Cake
Combine in a festive mug:
3 tablespoons of cake mix
2 tablespoons of water
1 minute in the microwave

5. Wrap your Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. 

Tie red and green ribbon around the top of each jar. Put red and green tissue paper, filled jars and instructions inside each of the coffee mugs.

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

Put the Christmas Mug Teacher Gift in the gift bags you made with your child earlier and you’re ready to give your presents to teachers, friends and hostesses!

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

In addition to giving these to my son’s teachers for Christmas, I also gave these as gifts to my friends in Bible study and on the Women’s Service Day organizing committee with me. All the recipients were delighted to see how my sons were involved in their gifts. More than anything, though, it was a great way to teach my sons about giving to others at Christmas time. These cute Printable Candy Bar Wrappers would also be a great addition to the mugs! How have you involved your kids in making their teacher gifts for Christmas? Please comment below and share – we need some new ideas for this year!

If you liked this Christmas Mug Teacher Gift idea, please share it with your friends or pin it for later:

Love this! Give a cake in a mug with this easy low cost Christmas Mug Teacher Gift. Also great for friends, hostesses or holiday party favors.

You may also enjoy these Christmas Ideas on Ideas for the Home by Kenarry® – 

  • Christmas Books: 5 Tips for Creating a Family Tradition
  • Displaying Christmas Cards with Ribbon
  • Teacher Gift Ideas: 20 Easy Crafts and Free Printables

For more great ideas, follow our Christmas Ideas Board on Pinterest.

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Gift Ideas

About Carrie Ypma

Carrie is the chief writer, crafter and cook here at Ideas for the Home by Kenarry®. She's an optimist by nature and enjoys sharing recipes, trying new craft ideas, planning for parties and events as well as organizing and decorating. She and her husband, Kent live in Michigan. She also loves to hide away in a castle under the stairs reading to her two young boys and help guests plan vacations at Sunshine Villa at Glenbrook Resort, their short term vacation rental home in Orlando near Walt Disney World.

Whether you’re cooking, crafting or creating for your family, follow Carrie on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get inspiring ideas for your home. For home organization tips and ideas, check out her other website, Clutter Keeper or follow her on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In this ultimate guide, you'll learn how to make a burlap wreath with ribbon for your home. The FREE eBook includes easy step-by-step instructions plus inspiring craft and decor ideas to make wreaths for fall, Christmas, Easter and other holidays.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Carrie says

    December 5, 2014 at 5:26 pm

    Thanks Leigh Anne! My dollar store mugs can’t compare to your stenciled ones, though! Now THOSE are a work of art!

    Reply
  2. Shirley says

    December 6, 2014 at 1:59 am

    I love this idea. Thanks for sharing. I have to wait awhile till my great grandson gets older to get the jars. Maybe next year.

    Reply
    • Carrie says

      December 6, 2014 at 11:32 pm

      Thanks, Shirley! I’m so glad you liked the idea. Enjoy that sweet baby great grandson! 🙂

      Reply
  3. Amanda says

    November 25, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Hi Carrie!

    I saw this on Pinterest and had to take a look. We’ve been doing this for years. I found it in a holiday book somewhere. We usually pick up Christmas mugs at either the Dollar Store or Goodwill, and then I get the treat bags with the twist ties from the Dollar Store or the Christmas-y themed ziplock sandwich baggies for the cake mix. One year I got super fancy and printed the instructions on vellum and then cut out tags with scrapbook paper and stuck the vellum over the scrapbook paper tags. Every year that we do it, the teachers just go nuts and think it’s a great idea!

    Reply
    • Carrie says

      November 25, 2015 at 9:35 pm

      Hi Amanda, thank you so much for sharing ideas for how you’ve done this in past years. I love the fancy way you added vellum into the tags. I bet they turned out super cute! No wonder the teachers go nuts over it.

      Reply
  4. Ivory says

    November 27, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    I adore this idea. Wish I knew someone with baby jars. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Reply
    • Carrie says

      November 28, 2016 at 9:01 pm

      Thanks Ivory! If you don’t have access to baby food jars, I bet any small food jars would work. Just start collecting as you use them for your everyday cooking.

      Reply
  5. Kelly ford says

    November 6, 2020 at 7:08 am

    Can you use brownie mix as well?

    Reply
    • Carrie Ypma says

      November 6, 2020 at 7:25 am

      Hi Kelly,
      Great question! I’ve never tried this with a brownie mix. I’d recommend you test it out first and see how it turns out before you fill your jars.

      Best wishes,
      Carrie
      Ideas for the Home by Kenarry

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Kid's Canvas Art Painting: An Easy Christmas Gift Idea says:
    December 4, 2015 at 6:00 am

    […] for his teachers and then paired it with a related gift card. A few years ago, we gave them Christmas Mugs with small jars of cake mix and instructions to make microwaveable mug cakes. We paired those with Starbucks gift cards. Last […]

    Reply
  2. Holiday Candy Dish: Easy Christmas Craft Idea for Kids says:
    December 2, 2016 at 6:00 am

    […] season is a season of giving and gratitude. For teacher gifts a few years ago, we put together cake-in-a-mug gifts paired with a gift card to a coffee shop. The following year, he created hand painted canvas art […]

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Carrie Ypma from Ideas for the Home by Kenarry®Hello, I'm Carrie! I'd love to personally welcome you to Ideas for the Home by Kenarry® where we curate and share great ideas you can create at home. Whether you're cooking, crafting or creating for your family, you're bound to find inspiration. Please pour yourself some coffee and stay awhile. We're glad you're here! Read more...

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