EasyPeasy Father's Day Gift Craft

How great is this idea?

DIY Dinosaur Planter Pot

Oh yes, everyone needs a dino planter.

DIY Father's Day Gift: Lego Key Holder Craft

You can use a Star Wars guy, Avengers guy, you name it...  

It's a cute idea!

Learn how to make one here.

FREE! Father's Day Card Wordsearch Printable

So this might be the bestest, most fun Father's Day card ever. It actually has a word search on the cover (I know, how cute is THAT?) Print one of your very own (for free!) over at the always-creative Paper & Pigtails.

FREE! Printable Father's Day Cupcake Toppers

Visit the always-adorable Paper Glitter to download your very own set :)

Happy Father's Day!

Since today is all about dads, I thought I'd share two of my favorite, recently-discovered dadcentric-themed movie picks:

Dan in Real life (A Romantic Dramedy, rated PG13, staring Steve Carell and Juliet Binoche.) This is a heartwarming little movie about a big crazy family, life with daughters, getting through grief, and love-love-love. Very Parenthoody, but more modern, sophisticated, and warm. I saw the trailer and it looked pretty boring, but the actual movie was a wonderfully sweet surprise. In my opinion, this one's prolly best for teens and up :)

Kit Kittredge (A Family Film, rated G, staring Abigail Breslin, Julia Ormand, and Chris O'Donnell.) This movie's based on a product (the American Girl dolls), so I thought it would be reallysuperLAME, but, as is sometimes the case...I was wayway wrong! Remember those great old fashioned Hayley Mills Disney movies?... This movie feels like those... it's a kind, wholesome movie about the Great Depression, told through the eyes of a little girl. It tackles delicate economic issues honestly but gently, and focuses on the importance of perseverance, optimism, friends, and family (a perfect choice for Grandparent visits.)

Father's Day Favorites Playlist

These sweetly-semi-sappy celebratory tunes make for an excellent Father's Day Mix CD (and btw, some of the songs are also great as father/daughter dance selections; I used the first at my wedding reception. )

Father/Daughter Dance Sneakiness Tip: At my reception, I wasn't too excited about the idea of having a ton of people staring at me, so after the first half of the song was over, we had the DJ invite all the dads and daughters in attendance to join us. We had lots of grandpas dancing with their grown daughters, and also ittybittylittle kids dancing with new dads... so it made for a really sweet moment (& really sweet photos, too.)

*Cool Dad artwork by Alison Creba.

Father's Day Top Pop

Ohmeohmy... how darling is this little Father's Day giftlet idea? It's a cleverly decorated Dad's Root Beer bottle, and the printables are free for the sharing at 2 Clever (there's also a similar printable for Valentine's day, and lots of other supercute, bright ideas, too...it's supercutetopia...)

Free Father's Day Coupon Printables

Homemade time & love certificates always make wonderful gifts. I especially lovelovelove the smarmypants details on the (free!) printable Martha Stewart coupons shown above...




And these scrapbooky check-style versions from Parties by Hardie are also free for the printing (and personalizing!)


Double yays for Father's Day!

*** DIY Make Your Own Choose Your Own ***

My husband and I agreed to make each other our Valentine gifts this year, so, after filtering through the zillion crafty ideas in my head (99.9% of which were girly), I decided to make him his own, personalized, non-girly Choose Your Own Adventure Book (please note the very non-girly karate pose, ninja eyes, spooky mask and weaponry...)

CYOA books were really a big huge deal when we were growing up in the 80s. For those of you who are too young to remember them (grr...) here's how they work: at the end of the first page of the story, the reader is given choices (ex: "if you open the door, turn to pg. 14" ... "if you choose to ignore the door, turn to pg. 52.") The story continues on different adventures based on the choices you make. You can reread the book multiple times and by making different choices, wind up with different endings. Sometimes you end up a millionaire, discover pirate treasure, or get run over by a rhino.

For my husband's book, I scanned an old CYOA book and switched out a couple of things (adding his name, and a photo of his head.) Please note how goofy it looks. Go for the goofy...that's part of the charm! Then I printed out and glued the altered cover onto a little cheap notebook with blank pages. Next came the time consuming part: actually writing the book. I used real-life main characters (his childhood friends, family, pets, ME, etc.) and of course included the requisite boy fantasy stuff (superheroes, cowboys, aliens, martial arts, and so on.) With CYOA books, cheesy is good, and since I'm naturally corny, coming up with the storylines was really pretty easy.

Besides Valentine's day, you could whip up a custom CYOA for a birthday, Christmas, or Father's Day... (you could even get your kids involved with the storylines...children are the best resource for imaginative ideas...)

Although this is a fun, silly gift for grownup 80s babies, I can also see this being a really sweet gift for children...

It could also be a creative school project for older kids. Teachers can easily tie-in whatever topics they need (4th grade example: write a CYOA about CA mission life.) In the process, kids will not only be learning about the given topic, but also writing, reading, using their imaginations, organizational abilities, & focusing on the importance of making wise choices :)

Tips:

1. Start the project way in advance. If you procrastinate, your head & hands will hurt. Ahem.
2. Add illustrations. The old books used simple line drawings. The goofier, the better.
3. Remember to be ridiculous (think yetis, Russian spies, time travel...)
4. Store your in-progress work in a big Ziploc bag (to avoid possible spill catastrophes.)
5. Have fun! This project is a great excuse be silly... embrace your inner kidlet :)