DAD Frame Gift

Last year's Father's day my husband, Dereck gave strict rules to his Dad's day gift, "No money. PERIOD." So Riley & I got our creative juices going and this was the end result.

At least bi-yearly we make a trip to The Picture People. If you have one, look at their website because they ALWAYS have a coupon and they honor it along with their Portrait Club. Okay, I'm not a sales person, but I'll give you the short, for the cost of the membership (which costs less then the freebies) you get a 3 free sheets and 3 $10 off to use at your portrait sessions, so it pays to join. Since they had a awesome Father's Day promo and we were (still are) Portrait Club Members we thought up the brilliant idea of pics. Hehe. 

A little more back story, my husband is a Veterinary Technician. My friends think it's cute to encourage her to take follow Daddy's footsteps, so she has been giving plenty of scrub stuff. She has a fake scrub top and Doctor Bear. We also have a few real stethoscopes lying around the house do to Dad's profession. The same friend that gave her the scrub top thought it was hilarious to give Riley a giant stuffed dog. Let me mention this gift was just like the friend's real dog and had to drive home with us from Sacramento back to San Diego with a pit stop in the Sequoias. Along with all that fun we had plenty of band-aids, a extra benefit of being a household with a kid. 

                     

Pictures turned out awesome and I think I may had ended up spending a few cents on tax, but I don't even think it cost me that. Three pictures were my absolute must haves and then the idea of a DAD Frame popped into my head. Now to think on making that work without spending...

I was just about to make my own DAD template by either typing and printing or drawing it out when I got the idea to Googled it. So funny! Martha Stewart had a template! Score! It wasn't exactly as thick as I wanted it but that was a easy fix. I then checked out her idea on how to do this project: Father's Day Cutout Frame. It was really similar to what I had in mind, but I really didn't follow her way. I didn't like the unfinished back and I wanted it to be a little bit more from our little one as opposed to a just me project.

Feel free to follow her directions, but here's how we did our's:

You'll need- 3 pictures, scissors, Exacto knife, cutting mat, heavy card stock, glue, masking tape or glue stick, 2 paper clips, paint brushes, paint and or glitter glue.

For our pictures I knew this wasn't a photo safe, acid free project, so I copied the pictures to simple black & white, also this was to easy my stress about cutting these beautiful images up. We worked with wallet sized versions. (I placed originals in a handmade Father's Day Card.) While I was printing I printed out Martha Stewart's template.

I gave Riley the card stock color options, any heavy scrapbook paper I had two of. She totally stuck with scrub blue.

Placed my template on top of card stock and paper clipped together. Roughly worked outside the letters with scissors, like I said I wanted our letters a little thicker. When you are cutting just make sure you have a flat very linear bottom so it can stand on Dad's Desk or what not, If you want thinner cut right on the lines. After that bit was done, the very careful Exacto the inside parts (the picture holes) step. Make sure your template is where you need it, re-clip it and work on top of your cutting mat. No need to gouge your table. It also is helpful to go over any tight spaces you couldn't get to with your scissors, just be gentle and careful not to rip or you can start over. Once that is done paper clip that DAD piece of card stock on another and bust out your scissors, again. This time your just making the back to hide all the rough picture trimming, tape, paper clip and glue mess.

Now is the time that if your kid is like mine and wanted to add a little something extra to the frame to go for it. She painted a silver glitter glue to the frame.

If that the frame is dry time you can finish the project up. Adjust your pictures inside DAD's holes (picture's will be secured to the backside, the mirror image side) and trim and hold in place with masking tape. Just make sure tape is on the back of picture and not hanging over any sides where the front of the letters will see it. If you would rather let your child glue stick the back of the frame piece and then place pics in you can, just trim the images after they are glued down so there isn't any gaps in the windows of the DAD frame. 

Unfold your paper clips half way. Tape the flat shorter end of paper clips to the middle of each D. Now I let my daughter have fun gluing the back card stock on.

Maybe this helped you stay in budget or at least got you thinking.

Happy Father's Day to all you Dad's out there! 

An to my husband, the greatest Dad I know. 

Riley is a very lucky little girl to have a awesome Dad like you!