Caroline
This year we made the familiar handmade photo frame out of craft sticks and my boys colored a special picture for their Daddy to attach to the inside. I thought about putting a photograph inside but decided it was more special being personalized like this. They also wrote messages to their Daddy on the back.
Our Daddy is a teacher at our church one Sunday a month, and he recently scored a small writing desk that was placed on someone’s curb with a “FREE” sign on it. He’s been using it as his studying desk to prepare for his Sunday lessons so we decided to make a twist on the regular shirt and tie crafts you see every year for Father’s Day and we made him a pencil/pen holder to put on his desk. I even found a cute haul truck button to use as a tie pin I’ll include a tutorial at the end for this craft as well.
Materials you will need:
– 4 crafts sticks (the tongue depressor size)
– hot glue gun
– paint
– paint brush
– white sheet of card stock
– scissors
– crayons
Directions:
1. Glue the 4 crafts sticks together using the hot glue gun to form a square frame.
2. Paint the frame and let it dry completely.
3. Cut a square piece out of the white card stock paper about 4 1/2″ x 4 1/2″. You might want to measure your sticks to see your exact dimensions.
4. Draw and color a picture on the card stock square. I encouraged my children to color a picture of them with their Dad, or something similar.
5. On the back of the card stock square, write (or help your child write) a personal message for their Dad.
6. Now it’s time to assemble the two pieces together. First, dry fit the picture to the back so you can see if you need to trim any edges. I had to trim edges off the top because my children colored too close to the bottom of the square. This is why I cut my squares a little bigger in the beginning to allow for some room to play with.
7. Put a dot of hot glue in each corner on the back of the frame and place your picture face side up on the glue to attach it to the frame.
8. At this point you are finished but you can glue a piece of string to the top corners so it can hang somewhere, or you could also attach a magnet so it can hang on the fridge.
Tutorial for Shirt & Tie Pencil Holder
Materials you will need:
– soup can
– sheet of white contact paper about 4″ x 12″ (depending on the size of can you use)
– 5/8″ ribbon, about 24″ long
– tape
– 2 white buttons
– small decorative button for tie pin
– marker
Directions:
1. Enjoy a bowl of soup for lunch. hahaha Italian style vegetable was not actually my first choice but it was in my pantry and needed to be eaten so it will do. LOL! After consuming your lunch, wash the can, remove the label, and let it dry completely.
2. Apply your white contact paper to the can. It doesn’t matter how much it overlaps (I actually think it looks better the thicker it is on the can).
3. See the picture below where you can see the line where the contact paper ends. This is the place we will be working with because this little line creates the front of the shirt where it buttons up. (get it??)
4. Now it’s time to make the tie. Cut your ribbon in two 12″ sections. Tape the ends of one of the sections to a table or counter top.
5. Take the second section of ribbon and wrap it underneath the other section (see picture below).
6. Wrap the bottom section to the front of the top section.
7. Now take that section and wrap it underneath the section on the table. (see picture below).
8. Now wrap that section through the top section to make the tie knot, and tighten it. Geez, what that confusing or what?? I would use my pictures as a diagram of how to make the tie, but if all else fails, do a google search on it, if my directions aren’t clear to you.
9. Remove the tape from the ribbon and dry fit it around the can making sure the tie is at that line we talked about earlier. You will most likely have to cut off excess ribbon to make it fit right. Tighten the ribbon around the can as much as you can and use the hot glue gun to glue the ribbon to the can.
10. Now use your scissors to trim the bottom of the tie and cut the edges like below.
11. Glue two white buttons to the bottom of the can so it looks like a white shirt.
12. Use the hot glue gun on the decorative button to glue to the top of the tie to make a tie pin. I also glued the two sections of the tie together so the back section stayed put.
13. Write a special message on the back using the marker and you are finished!! Now just add some freshly sharpened pencils and a couple new fancy pens for finishing touches.
