My hubby's birthday snuck up on me this year, and I was hoping to go to one of those paint-a-piece studios where I could put my sons' handprints on a mug or plate... But most places need five days' turn-around, and his birthday is this weekend.
I have a five-year-old and four-month-old. Any ideas for some cute homemade things we can do instead, that we can work on in the afternoons this week and have finished on time?! I was thinking of maybe doing some cute art with their painted handprints on construction paper, maybe framing it for his desk? What have you ladies done along those lines?
PS, I lost my job six months ago so I'm trying to find something as inexpensive as possible. Thanks so much for your help!!!
Paint there hand or footprints on a T-shirt!
You can do multi color or blue prints on a white shirt.
Soooo cute.
Just use a sponge to dab the paint on their hands or feet, then press to the shirt.
I've seen footprint ones with "My Kids Walk All Over Me" on them.
Just from my experience, it can be REALLY tough to do the handprint of a 4 month old, so you might want to do the baby's footprint instead.
I saw this idea and thought it was cute. Get some sort of painting pallet and put their hand print on it and label the year and age. Put a cute saying at the top that says something about Daddy and how he will always be a Dad forever or something...then next year, Have them put their hand print again somewhere else on the pallet and label it with the year/age again. Do this throughout the years so he can see how much they've grown.
Just thought it was a cute idea.
I did this for the kid's grandmas. We got cheap 8x10 wrapped canvasses at hobby lobby, painted them with acrylic craft paint, let that dry, paint another coat. (Dries fast).
Then, dip the hands in the other color you want and place them on the canvas. Practice on a piece of newspaper or something first.
After that, we decorated with raelly pretty scrapbook stickers, glitter, painted details and my husband drew a picture.
For a man, you can use colors like pale gray on dark gray or blue, forest green... Craft stores sell really masculine scrapbook stickers too.
After everything was very dry, I painted over the whole thing with matte mod podge in 2 or 3 thin layers (drying between layers) to seal everything together and give a protective finish.
Cost less than $15 to make two, and it took less than 2 nights.
Pictures of how they turned out:
http://littlelovables.blogspot.com/2011/05/happy-mothers-...
(they look way more glittery on camera b/c of the flash!)
My father is a tough man to buy for, so we struggle with this each year but for different reasons. This year, I had my son paint his Pops a picture and then bought a frame at Michael's. On the back, we wrote: "To Pops for your office. Happy birthday!". Not only did he love it, but we knew he didn't already have it!
You could also take a bunch of current pictures of your children, print them at CVS in black-and-white and frame them for his office.
Last year we made drink coasters for Daddy to take to work and use on his desk. I found some round wooden circles at Michael's. They were less than a dollar each. My older son modge podged pictures of fish over a water back ground. It was cheap easy and loved by Dad. My daughter was only two at the time. So we bought a stack of post its and she colored the sides to decorate it. He used it in his office to take notes and such. I am sure we spent less that $10 on all of it.
They have stepping stone kits at Michaels. My neice and nephew did one every year for my brother. He has a pathway with them and you can see the hand prints getting bigger every step. It's adorable.
Micheals! they have tons of projects in every price range.
A picture frame - you can make it with corrugated cardboard & glue if needed. One of my favorite pictures of my daughter was taken at VBS one year (about 10 yrs ago now) - they made frames out of cardboard, glued scraps of colorful fabric & beads and using a hot glue gun attached a paper clip on the back as the hanger & taped the photo to the back. It's all about the photo. If you husband has an office or cube he can hang it there, if he has a locker attach a magnet to the back and he can hang it on the inside of his locker door.
We did the same as Momma L, but we didn't paint the canvass prior to doing the handprints. We did a canvass for each kid with their hands and on a separate canvass we did all of their footprints and added a bible verse at the bottom. We used 2 colors, it is very, very cute.
Another idea that we did for each of our girls birthday. We purchased a sheet and at the end of the party had every kid put their handprint on it with whatever paint color they liked. Then had it made into a quilt for their bed. If you sew or know someone who does you can do a "quicky quilt" by purchasing fabric to sew the sheet on top of and cut and tie the edges. Make it his blanket to snuggle with the kids.
Hi.
Photo collage
tiny scrap book with photos and mementos for his office
framed pictures (make cardboard frames and have kids decorate the frames).
I did a collage with pics and cut outs from magazines, ticket stubs etc...in one hour and i am totally not artistic :)
best of luck...
Jilly
Michaels and Target both have plenty of do-it-yourself craft kits that make good gifts. The concrete stepping stone was fun, about $10 (michaels). Our kit had plastic letters in it so you could spell out and imprint a message into your stone. You could also find a craft book at the library and make a Christmas ornament for daddy. Five year old can glue and decorate a couple "picture frame" ornaments with their photos inside. How about baking sugar or gingerbread cookies. Use icing to write happy birthday. Decorate the cookies like crazy (my kids loved doing this). Daddy can take them to work to share.
