My dad is my hero

Hey friends, hope you're doing great. I'm sorry that I've been absent for the last two weekends. Last weekend took us to St. Louis to celebrate the 90th birthday of my husbands grandmother. We had a GREAT time and enjoyed the free zoo and of course Ted Drewe's!!! We also had an incredible time catching up with all the family and we're excited that we now only live 4 hours from family rather than 12!

This week my niece has been here with us and helping me tremendously with the kids. She's been great and played countless games, colored TONS of pictures, read lots of books and beat me at Monopoly Deal more times than I can count. She's been getting me in the crafty mode too, since she loves to craft and it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of (my husband always says "don't ask me, you're the creative one").

I got the shirts done for the kids to wear tomorrow for Father's Day. I'm so happy with how they turned out and can't wait for him to see them at church in the morning! I also have printed out this Super Dad banner and plan on hanging it up for him to see after church. I'll share photos of the kids in their shirts next week. But there they are!! What do you think?

Memory Tree

We made another gift for DADDY today! Although this can be made anytime of year. I will proudly display this in our home for many years after Daddy opens it! ;-)

This is a quick project that you can do in minimal time. So perfect for last minute gifts. And you will most likely have the supplies if you are a crafty person like myself. LOL

Here is what you will need...

Hard Board (size of your choice, ours is 16x20)

Newspaper (torn in small to medium pieces)

Matte Medium

Gesso

Paints (different greens for each child's hand and grass, blue for the sky and brown for the trunk)

Sponges and paintbrushes

Paper Plate for paints

Spray craft varnish

First start with your Matte Medium and Newspaper pieces. Paint a little Matte medium on the hardboard. add the newspaper and paint more matte medium on top. Do this on the whole board. This gives your board some texture and dimension. Set aside to dry.

Once everything is dry, grab the gesso and paint over the paper. You will have to do a minimum of two coats to cover the paper. If you are wanting to leave it a white background, you will need more white coats. We wanted to paint ours different colors, so we didn't worry about covering everything. Again, set aside to dry.

TIP...in between coats, wrap your paintbrush in foil and stick in the fridge. This will keep is moist between coats. You won't have to worry about constantly rinsing out your brushes.

Now that you have your textured board ready to go, you can now sponge on your sky blue and grass green. I just used a kitchen sponge and cut it up into squares. It covers fast and gives it a nice effect. Make sure you paint your green down low. You want a nice tall tree to put those hands on.

Here comes the fun parts. It's beginning to look like something fun! Get out your brown paint. Use a brush to outline your tree. Give it some branches, then fill in the trunk with a sponge.

The really, really fun part is adding the kids hands. Each of my kids had their own color for their handprint, giving the tree cool look. I like it too because it makes each of their handprints stand out. We also filled in areas with finger prints of each color. It made it look like little leaves.

And you're done! A perfect gift for any occasion. And with Father's day this weekend, it's perfect! ;-)

Another look at our tree!

Father's Day Freezer Paper Shirts

Today we are working on Father's Day shirts! A little behind, I know! Eeeek! I just designed these this morning. Daddy is working out in the shop on some customer cabinets, so he has been home a lot. I keep telling him, warn us when your coming in so we can hide your presents. LOL This is why we are a little behind on gifts this year. And I can't have the kids make their Papa's gifts in front on him either, because they are similar.

Here is what we are making.... SHIRTS!

Below are the images I made for the shirts. Please use them if you like!! And if you do, I'd love to see the happy Daddy and kiddos wearing them. 

For Daddy (and/or mommy too)

For the Kiddos

 

Just use the FREEZER PAPER method to make your shirts.

I bought a shirt for daddy and shirts for all the kids. Our plan is to have daddy open up all the shirts as one gift. Then when we take daddy to lunch, they will all wear them. I can't wait to take pics of them all wearing them.

We are finished! Here are our shirts! What do you think? We love them!
We had a little bleeding of paint. One, we used a little too much paint. (kids were generous, lol) and the girls shirts were ribbed, so that was a little tricky. But you can read them, and the kids made them for daddy, so I'd say they are perfect! ;-)

Father's Day Puzzles

I was browsing around at some of my favorite blogs when I came across a great Father's Day Gift idea. It was a tutorial by Lil Blue Boo. If you haven't been to her site, you need to. I love everything she shares. So go by and let her know I sent you.

Here is my take on this Father's Day Gift....the kids loved helping make these.

What you will need...

Golden's Soft Gel Medium

Jumbo Popsicle Sticks

Paint Brushes (fingers)

Fine Sand Paper

Brayer

Double Sided Tape

Plain Piece of Paper

Photo printed with laser printer

(not pictured)

Wax Paper

Spray Varnish

Start by placing double stick tape on a plain piece of paper. Add the popsicle sticks. The tape will hold the sticks in place while you work.

Have your image cut to size and set aside ready to lay on the sticks. But first take your Gel Medium and add them to the top of the popsicle sticks. You want to add enough (not too much, not to little) to the sticks.  Apply with a brush or your fingers. I gave each of my kids a brush and they all helped.

Once you have generously covered the popsicle sticks, place your photo face down on top of the gel and sticks. Cover with wax paper.  Grab your brayer tool and smooth out the paper completely. I used the wax paper so I wouldn't get the gel on it while smoothing it out. 

Set aside and let the gel dry completely. It takes up to 20-30 minutes for the whole thing to completely dry. Your paper will curl up, that's normal. Don't worry.

After completely dry, add water and gently remove the paper. To make things easier, I ended up using a razor blade to cut each stick apart, then submersed each stick under water to peel off the paper. This helped keep the ink on the stick, rather than scratching off the image. This will make the sticks warp (curl) a bit, but as they dry they straightened out. You can also place something heavy on top to keep it from curling if you are worried about that. By doing it this way, I was able to save the whole image with very minimal scratches.

Once all the sticks are cleaned and completely dry, you will see a little dry looking residue.  Take the Spray Varnish and spray (outside, it's bad stinky) both the front and back of the popsicle sticks. You now have a nice finish and protection for your photo. Get some twine and make a tag. Finish by tying around your puzzle. You're ready to give it to the daddy, papa, uncle in your life.

You can also drill holes in one of the ends, like Lil Blue Boo did. But I didn't have access to the drill at the time, so I improvised. ;-)

Here's a pic of the kids while they worked on these. We ended up making 9 puzzles. Some for daddy (I made him one too), some for Papa and some for their uncle.

Here is another finished look at one of the puzzles we made. I have always loved this photo of my kids. It was taken a while back, but I just love it and wanted to use it for the puzzles gifts.

I am hoping to post our other gift ideas this week too for Father's Day, so keep an eye out. Have a great week everyone!

Father's Day Card Craft & Tutorial

Looking for the perfect card for Dad this year? Why not make him one with the kids.

We took some great scrapbook paper and a little love and made these fun cards. Hope you enjoy them.

What you will need....

• Scrapbook paper (in Daddy Man colors) 
• Scissors
• Glue
• Double Sided Tape
• Regular Tape
• Pens
• and some kids to help you make them (wink, wink)

~ How to make them ~

First, start off by picking the best paper for your daddy. The daddy in our family loves the guitar. Not quite able to play it yet, but wants to learn. So we picked some cool rocker paper. Thought it would be perfect.

You will need at least 3 different colors of paper. One for your main card, one for a contrast (this will be for the tie) and a lighter color so the kids can write on it.

Take a book (or old greeting card) and lay it out on your scrapbook paper. Trace and cut out to fit. Do this on your main card paper for now. Cut out.

Fold over at the top. (about 2 inches) Now cut a strip (to fit the fold) of paper for the back. This is going to be your collar. You want to use the same paper as the front so they match. Unless you want to get funky. LOL That is always fun too! Glue the strip to the top back with either school glue or a glue stick. Fold back over to keep your straight line.

Tip... if you have double sided scrapbook paper, you can skip this part. Although usually the paper is a different print. So you might want to still add the strip.

Now cut just below your strip that you just glued on. Only cut about 1 inch in on each side. Fold the top down on each side into the shape of a collar. I secured the collar down with double sided tape.

It looks like a daddy shirt now! Wow! That was easy. Look how cool that looks!

Here comes a fun part. The kids love this because it really makes the look of the card. A tie. Take a contrasting scrapbook paper. (we used a guitar one, loved it) Turn your paper face down and draw a tie shape. Cut out the tie and secure on your shirt with double sided tape. Look at how cool that is!

Now its time to turn this into a card. Take another piece of scrapbook paper (cut to the shape of the book like you did above) Trace to fit the shape of your collared shirt. Cut out.

Now in order to hide the staples, you want to take a few steps. First, place the back paper you just cut directly on top of the shirt. The inside of the card on top. Second, you want to staple the two together.

Third, Fold the top to the left, then fold again to close your card. By doing this, you will hide the staples from showing on the outside of the card.

This is what it looks like on the inside. Just fold over the stapled edge and tape down with your regular tape. Don't worry about seeing the staples here. You are going to cover this up too! I got ya covered. LOL

When you staple the card like this, you will have to go back on the front and trim the right side of the card to match the other side. A simple fix.

Now open up your card and lets cover up those staples. Just use the same color of scrapbook paper and fit a piece to cover all the white and all those ugly staples. Again, I just used double sided tape to secure this down. It's beginning to look like a finished card.

Take your final piece of scrapbook paper and cut to fit the inside of your card. Secure with double sided tape. This will give the inside of your card some color.

YOU are DONE!

Let your kids decorate and sign their Father's Day card. Isn't that just the best kind of card you could give your Daddy this year.

I think this turned out amazing. This kids loved it and had so much fun making it.

We will be making two more versions of this for Papa and Grandad too! Please share your Father's Day cards. We would love to see them. Hope you loved ours.