Dad's Favorite T-Shirt

My kiddos love to draw on daddy's back with body crayons. LOL The only problem with that is, it's messy. The body crayons are fun and I didn't want them to not be able to do something fun with their daddy. So when I saw this idea HERE. I knew it would be fun for all of them.

We made ours by just looking at the original photo and just hand drawing it on. I used a pencil, then used fabric pens to finish. If you don't want to draw them on, you can visit The Blue Basket to use their printouts.


Here is our shirt. The fabric pens bleed a bit, but it still turned out great. Plus the kiddos and daddy love it!

We added a bit more to ours. A Welcome to "Daddyville" Sign with a population. 37 MPH sign (all the kids ages added up). We also added Dad's Favorite T-shirt to the front.

Don't they look like they are having fun!?!

Gifts for grandma and husbands

Hey there everyone, sorry for being absent on the blog last week, I was enjoying time with my family and didn't feel like spending any of that time on the computer...

So I owe you two weeks worth of gifts. Gifts for grandma and gifts for husbands.

There were a few things that my mom mentioned when I asked her about what the kids could make
for her that she would like to receive. She said she loves any handmade gift from the kids and
especially anything made with handprints. So, we did the handprint calendar for grandpa but obviously
grandma gets to enjoy that as well. She mentioned things like placemats, mousepads, an apron with
handprints on it...and while I think these are all great ideas and hopefully we'll still be able to make some
of these things before Christmas, we made something different. My parents are missionaries right now
over seas and they don't have a lot of the "comforts of home" with them over there. So, I decided to have my kids paint them a picture. I just gave the kids a square canvas board and let them use their own creativity to paint them a picture. Canvas boards can be found at JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby and it was a package of 6 boards for $7.99 and I had a 40% off coupon so each board only cost me about 80cents, and I already had the paints on hand so this is a VERY inexpensive gift idea.

These paintings usually happen in "sessions", they paint for a bit then stop and add more too it at another time. They LOVE to paint and ask almost everyday if they can paint. I like to keep those square canvas boards on hand for times like these. They make great personal gifts. I didn't take a photo of the finished project because I don't want to spoil the surprise for my mom!

I don't have any photos of what I am getting/making for Greg...but I can tell you about it quick. I ordered some personalized products with some photos that my aunt took for us on Thanksgiving. He's in need of a new travel mug (takes his coffee to work with him every morning) so I ordered one from Shutterfly. I also ordered a desk calendar for him from Vistaprint (I got the same one as a wall calendar for free). And the thing I am making for him is pajama pants. He told me that he was a little sad last Christmas when the kids got new jammies but he didn't. SO, I  went to goodwill and had Micah pick out a top sheet that he liked (he picked solid navy blue) and I bought that and one flannel sheet for the girls and I plan to sew pj pants for the whole family out of those sheets. Sheets are so much cheaper (especially from goodwill) than buying that much yardage of fabric at the fabric store. Plus, isn't it nice to crawl into your sheets wearing sheets?! Ha, we'll see. I have a pair for myself that I cut out of some old vintage orange and yellow flower sheets about two years ago...maybe I'll actually sew them for my Christmas present this year!

Hope I've given you some ideas. I need something else for my hubby though, so if you have any good hubby gift ideas I'd love to hear them!! Have a great week!

Gifts for Daddy's

First off! Sorry to be gone so long. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our family! Took more family photos with everyone! They look awesome and I will share them soon! We spent the rest of the weekend playing games with the kids, went to the movies and took a couple family drives. Sorry again...Check out some Daddy gifts below!

This week for our 12 Weeks of Christmas Gifts....

The gift is for Daddy's...!

Here's a pic of my hubby with the kiddos! We have some cute ones of them giggling in this same pose too!

Visit HERE to see past and upcoming Gift ideas.

And please visit HERE to view the gifts we have already posted!

Don't forget to grab the Christmas Gifts Button in the sidebar!!!

For Daddy...

For my hubby's birthday, the kids gave him the pic I shared for Papa's! The one with their feet saying "We Heart Daddy". And I gave him a framed photo of him with his silly bitter beer face. LOL He loved them! Said they were the best gifts ever! So that is why we are giving him more pics for Christmas! He loves the ones from our family photo shoot. So we thought it would be fun to put them in a frame as a series. He will be so excited.

More For Daddy...

In case you don't have any photos to give, I thought I would share some more great Daddy gift ideas!!! Click on the photos below to learn more.

    

    

These are some great gifts! Make sure you go visit them and tell them how great these are!!! These are all on our list to make for Daddy this year! Of course, if you notice the shirts in the larger picture, we made those this past fathers day and I wanted to share them again. I think they would make a great Christmas present too!

Have a great week everyone!!!

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! ;-)