First, you're gonna need to cut the top off of your milk carton. It's a good idea to make it shorter than your pencils, but tall enough to give some strength to your final piece.

Fire up your trusty glue gun...

Now start gluing the pencils all around the carton. I applied the glue directly to the carton itself and then stuck on the pencils. This way I didn't have to guess where the carton stopped and didn't have to deal with left-over glue on my pencils.

I made all of my pencils face the same direction for a more uniformed look, but you could alternate the sides of the pencils to make a pattern if you want. Using colored pencils could look really cool for an art teacher.

I would not suggest sharpening your pencils. It might seem like a cool idea, but honestly you'll lose the uniformed height and you don't want to stab your teacher either!!!

Make sure you're gluing the pencils super close to each others. Gaps are icky icky!

Tada!!! Check out your super cool, super handmade teacher's gift!
Go on and add a bow and some pretty flowers. An awesome filler for this vase would be those flower pen things that you make with the green tape?
What teacher wouldn't want this on her desk?

Because I used a milk carton, this vase is totally liquid proof!
You heard me, you can actually give real life flowers with this thing!
Flowers in a vase...who would have thought huh?