6.09.2013

10 Father's Day Card and Gift Ideas for Dads and Grandpas!

Father's Day is already coming up in a week! Here are ten simple cards or gifts you could create or buy for your kids' dad or grandpa.


  • Take a picture of your kids in their dad's clothes. My sister at Wishful Thinking Photography set up this adorable photo a few years back.
  • Buy or make a large letter D and A. Take a picture of your child or children posing with the letters and then make a collage to spell out DAD. (You only need one letter D if you are going to make a collage as I did below because you can use the same D twice. But if you were to have multiple children in a picture at once, you might need three letters).
  • World's Best Dad "Hand's Down." Paint or trace each of your children's handprints and put them on a piece of paper pointing downward. You could frame this as a gift or just use it as a card as I did. Inspiration for this idea came from here.
  • Interview your kids to see how much they know about their dad or grandpa. You can find a free printable you can use for this as well as many other cute Father's Day ideas and printables here. My kids' answers were hilarious and it was a fun little addition to give their dad these interviews with their father's day cards. You could also do a video version of this interview to show the kids' cute responses to the questions.
  • "Following in our Daddy's shoes" card. Use washable paint to make prints of the bottom of each child's shoe along with their Dad's shoe. Or you could do a picture of the kids' feet or footprints with the saying "following in our dad's footprints"--similar to what we did for Mother's Day. You could pair this with a foot massager or a new pair of shoes to make a nice gift.
Grandpa is always a little harder to shop for than for my husband. But here are a few gifts I have given my kid's grandpas in previous years.
  • We created our own personalized version of an apron similar to this apron  I found online  with the saying "Stand Back Grandpa is Grillin .  I got an apron and printable iron-on paper from the fabric store and to create a similar design with his name added in. You could also have your kids add handprints to it if you like.
  • Remember the good old days of giving coupons to your dad? That works nice--unless you are all grown up and live far away from your dad or Grandpa. So instead of those coupons, it doesn't hurt to send a little gift certificate for something they would appreciate such as a gift certificate for a car detailing.
  • Edited family videos--One year as a gift I edited all of the family videos Grandpa had taken on his flip video recorder the previous year and put them on DVDs for him to enjoy.
  •  Homemade Salsa and Chips--this was a pretty simple gift, but I do have to admit it was one of the most appreciated father's day gifts we have given. We made a big batch of homemade salsa and packaged it attractively along with some fun tortilla chips for a simple edible gift.
  •  My father-in-law especially loves emergency preparedness gadgets so although it may not seem the most sentimental, we have given him gifts such as the LifeHammer  and this year he is getting this  Jump Starter with Built-In Air Compressor.
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6.07.2013

Mini Individual Cheesecakes Recipe

Ingredients:
16 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 box vanilla wafers
1/2 can cherry pie filling
2" foil midget cups

Instructions:
Soften cheese, beat in eggs, vanilla, and sugar until smooth.  Put wafers in cups flat side down.  Fill cups almost full with mixture and bake 10 minutes at 375 degrees.  When cool, top with cherry and sauce.  Yield 30.  Will keep 4 days or can be frozen and then thawed.  All you'll need to do is add the cherries!

Enjoy these yummy treats for summer, parties, or holidays.  I love that they are the perfect size for dessert and if you want to make mini cheesecakes, you can adapt by getting mini foil cups and mini vanilla wafers.  The mini versions work great for an open house or potluck where people want a sampling of many items.  They truly make a bite-size as opposed to the version I posted above that are about the size of a traditional cupcake.  At our recent neighborhood party, individual cheesecakes were the first to go!

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6.06.2013

Summer Idea #97... Newspaper Fashion Show


If you read my daughter's ideas of  101+ Things to do in the Summer, 
you may have gotten to #97 and wondered what a Newspaper Fashion Show is.
So this post will describe just that!

She and her friends gathered a huge stack of newspapers and tape.  Then they went to work designing their own outfit, including bows, skirts, shirts, and even shoes sometimes!  At the end, they all walk down the stairs showing off their creations.  Another spin on this is to create an outfit as a group.  If you are having a tween or teen birthday party, you can have two groups have to design a wedding dress or something fancy on one guest.  Then each group can show off their creation.

This is a fun activity for an icebreaker activity, birthday parties, church activities, summer camp or simple summer day fun!

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