The holidays are a popular time to stop and thank teachers and all of the wonderful staff at school for all they do.

With the tightened economy, I wanted to come up with some inexpensive gift ideas to creatively say thank you.

I like giving reusable cups to package gifts. They are practical and cute! I decided an insulated travel cup would be appropriate for the winter season. To dress them up (literally) add a faux scarf of felt. You can buy a short cut of felt off the bolt from the craft store to give you a long enough piece to cut to wrap around the cup. Or if you have sheets of felt at home, sew or hot glue two strips together to fit around. Fiskars Razor-edge Scissors are my go-to option for cutting felt. If cutting long strips, using a rotary cutter on a craft mat with acrylic ruler is a quick option. Cut a couple slits at each end to mimic a scarf.

Tip: Cut an extra sliver from each slit to make the fringe really stand out.

You can tie a tag onto the scarf, but I found a way to display a sentiment in an unexpected way by adding a trendy flag at the top. Take a bamboo skewer and add a bead with small hole to the pointed end and screw on tightly. You may need to trim a little from the tip depending on the size of the bead hole. Add a little super glue if it is not secure. This skewer can be inserted into the drink opening at the top of the cup. You may need to trim some from the bottom of the skewer for a good height.

Since the travel cup is insulated and I am filling with packets of hot chocolate, 'warm winter wishes’ is the perfect sentiment. The Winter Wishes stamp set has become my go-to stamp set this holiday season. I’ve been using it on everything! It has great phrases, beautiful snowflakes, and the most adorable penguin characters. After stamping the greeting onto cardstock trimmed as a flag, I added a snowflake punch for a finishing touch. I like to layer two punches in the same design in different sizes with a mini pop-dot for beautiful dimension.

Reusable cups are a great gift because they are not only practical, they are fun to fill! You can add little goodies like the hot chocolate packets I used, but you can also roll up a card or artwork inside from your child. I figured my 'warm’ message could use a 'cool’ card that would be fun for the kids to make.

I remembered how much fun the kids had making leaf rubbings this fall, and this is the same concept. Using the Snowflake texture plate, place a sheet of printer paper on top and color with crayons. There’s no need to peel off the crayon wrapper. The flat end of the crayon works great for this to color back and forth. Play around with adding in multiple colors for a gorgeous look. Trim you child’s masterpiece to fit on the front of a folded card and add a fun sentiment.

Another fun way to package goodies is by adding a few details onto a small, plain treat bag to create an adorable reindeer. A glittered nose for Rudolph pairs well with a 'thanks for making my future bright’ tagline! A few standard shapes is all you need: a large oval from the oval shape template layered under a circle punched nose and two oval punches for eyes layered under two pop-up circle punched pupils. To add glitter to the punched nose, coat with glue (I use a little paintbrush) and sprinkle to cover with red glitter. The antlers are rolled into the top of the stapled bag. Just take three brown chenille stems and twist into one. Fold over each stem at the end and twist to form antlers. Bend each side up once secured inside top of bag.

The bag can house little treats or candy, a gift card, or a card and artwork from your child. Here’s a fun way to make a coordinating card using a seasonal punch in a creative way. The limited edition Perfect Pear punch is a gorgeous design for the holidays and can pull adorable double duty as Rudolph.

Just punch three pears from brown cardstock. Trim off the leaf from one for your face and trim the leaves from the other two to adhere behind for ears. A trimmed Snowflake lever punch makes quick work of antlers.

An adorable baked treat can be a fun and inexpensive gift idea. I came up with this super simple snowman cupcake. I’ve found the simpler something is, the cuter it usually is. Which works out well during the busy holiday season! Bake standard sized cupcakes and frost white. Avoid frosting all the way to the edge. Leaving that barrier will be helpful when packaging. Add upside-down chocolate chips for eyes and a mouth and a candy corn nose.

I recently learned this trick for individually packaging cupcakes. Drop the cupcake into a short, nine ounce plastic cup and wrap in a clear treat bag tied with a ribbon bow. To kick it up a notch, I added white snowflakes to the bag. Stamp snowflakes from the Winter Wishes stamp set using white permanent solvent ink (I used StazOn Opaque in Cotton White) which will dry quickly on the plastic.

Print out a theme-appropriate 'thanks snow much’ sentiment to punch with an XL circle squeeze punch and a holiday greeting onto a large circle. Adhere the two together to form a simple snowman tag. Add a handwritten note to the back and punch a hole at the top to hang from ribbon.

Whether you are giving a practical gift or a delicious one, turn to your Fiskars tools to creatively thank these special people in our lives.