A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by my son's school 'room mom,' asking if I would help her create an "End of the Year TEACHER Gift."

She wanted the gift to be from the Entire Class. Of course, I said YES, I'd love to help, since this is totally right up my alley!!

I sent out an email to all of the students parents explaining that the 'room mom' and I were creating a gift for the teacher and that it was going to be a gift from the ENTIRE class and asked the parents for a donation of any amount to purchase gift cards for her. ALL of the parents were so generous!! We received $100.00 for the gift cards! How AWESOME!! huh??

So after a little thought and a little creating, I made a

3-tier 'Candy Cake.'

BUT, with a twist! You see, you'd never know it, but there are "hidden" gifts inside this candy cake.

Here is the Candy 'Cake' that was presented to a WONDERFUL teacher...

...WHO, totally TAKES THE CAKE, when it comes to teaching ;)

This one is a little complicated, so let me try to explain it, as best I can:

This is the TOP LAYER

and guess what: it opens! When you take the top lid off, this is what's inside:

A $50.00 Target Gift Card.

When you take the next lid off, you see this:

A $50.00 Barnes and Noble Gift Card and...

Open the next one and this is what you see:

Handmade Cards for the teacher from ALL of her students!

The room mom went into school one day, during Art, and helped the students create the cards.

Here's the How To:

#1 - Gather Supplies: Three Different size Rubbermaid Take Along Bins, Wrapped Candy, Artificial Flowers, Ribbon, Paper Shred, Cardboard Cake Circle and a Hot-Glue Gun

#2 - Wrap curling ribbon around each candy bar

#3 - Remove lids and hot-glue the candy to the rim of the take along bins

#4 - Repeat Step #3 to all three bins

#5 - Hot-glue the BINS to the COVERS of the next size larger, so they stack on top of each other, creating three tiers

#6 - Hot-glue paper shred and pretty artificial flowers to the edges of the lids and to the bottom of the circle cake

#7 - Finish with a "cake topper" of your choice. I made the "you take the cake" label and attached it with a Popsicle stick