{blogtober day 6} grad gifting

It seems like only a moment ago I did my very first school drop off, and from that moment on, life was on fast forward. Within a month, I decided 9am to 3pm were the fastest six hours I’d ever experienced, but I was wrong. They had nothing on the speed with which we went from 2012 to 2024, and suddenly my Facebook feed was flooded with these tiny babies, once swamped by too large backpacks and crisp fresh uniforms, no longer tiny but grown and walking out of school for the very last time.

While our own school journey diverged from mainstream quite some time back, and Bear has not only finished year twelve but a uni diploma besides, I found myself crying seeing these children that I’d watched grow up – some from kindy, preschool, a couple even from the earliest days of newborn motherhood – bid farewell to school days and childhood, and face the future and adulthood with bright shiny smiles, the world at the feet and a million different opportunities before them.

In that crowd was Bear’s bestie (who really needs her own blog name by now!). In between the birthdays and the everything that comes with September, I decided she needed a little Rachy-made gifty to celebrate this milestone and send her into exams with our well wishes.

I found this cute pouch with a free tutorial on Pinterest, and I thought it would be the perfect thing with a couple of oil rollers tucked inside. When I went container diving though, I found I’d used up all my 5ml rollers, leaving only 10ml. Not a drama, since those would be better for the labels I had anyway, but I did need to add an inch to the length of the back piece and the bottom section.

Originally, I only planned to add two rollers, but once I popped them in, there was enough room for a third; perfect since I was struggling to narrow down my choices. My chosen blends were “Study Session” (an obvious choice for a HSC student), Ego Boost for confidence, and Singing The Blues for an exam stress pick me up.

Everything came out of stash, and it turned out so cute. With a little D ring on the side, it should be a handy little pouch for her to take with her to uni next year also – clipped to a room key with panadol and bandaids? Attached to the laundry bag to keep coins handy? Lots of ways a mini zippy pouch would come in handy.

And with that gifted, all that remains of Bear’s tenuous connection to school days is to spend his afternoons as Emotional Support Nerd as Bestie studies, and in five short weeks, the exams will be done, the formal over, and they will be off on the grand adventure that is schoolies to blow off steam before the next chapter.

I swear it was only last week they started school…