Beary Special Card For Dad

At the last minute, I decided to pull together a Father's Day card that would be different from the "Love You... This Much" card that the girls Dad, NASA, watched them make for Papa. I originally planned to create some footprint art for his gift. I thought I would have the girls create a bear from their footprint inspired by one I saw on the blog Handprint & Footprint Art. It would say, "You are Beary Special." I know, super cute huh?

NASA takes the girls hiking and camping. They have come home telling me all about spotting bear scat. Oh joy! They thought a bear for his Father's Day card was awesome.

After doing the hands cut outs for the card they made Papa, I wasn't really in the mood to pull out the paint. I really should have planned better and done the Father's Day crafts on seperate sessions. I just didn't have the motivation and the girls didn't want to sit and wait, they wanted to keep working to finish all the crafts.  Since I already had the Cricut out for the "Love You," so I figured why not see about finding a bear.

The Doodlecharms Cricut cartridge has a teddy bear. I printed it out on brown card stock. The girls did the rest. Results: very adorable Happy Father's Day... You are Beary Special cards.

This beary special card could be used for any holiday.  Bears are never out of style.

Father's Day Craft - Love You...

This was a fun and easy craft for Hey and Myrrh. 10 Easy Steps. I saw this on Day in My Life blog and thought it was great for a Father's Day gift to send to Papa. Being that he is all the way across the country, this could be like a hug sent to him. Plus, I didn't really plan anything in advance and was able to do this on a whim since I had all the supplies on hand.

Materials List:
Card Stock Paper - Child's color choice
Pencil
Scissors
Eraser
Glue
Stickers and/or Stamps for the letters

Step 1.  Trace both hands onto colored card stock paper.

Step 2.  Cut the hands out of the card stock.

Step 3.  Erase the pencil marks from the hand after it is cut.

Step 4.  Write, stick, or glue the words "I Love You..." on one side of one hand. On card stock, I cut out the words with my Cricut using the Jubilee Celebration Font Cartridge. The girls glued it onto the hand.

Step 5.  Cut 2 strips of card stock paper, the same size/width. Ours were the length of the paper, 11 inches. The width of our strips were 1 1/2 inch. Your strips may vary depending on the size of your letters and/or your child's hand.  

Step 6.  Glue the two strips together, end to end, making it approx. 21 inches long since you have to overlap the ends to glue together. You can make it as long as you want.

Step 7.  Fold the long strip, accordion style.

Step 8.  Place a letter in each fold. "T h i s   M u c h".  Leave enough space at the ends to allow the strip to be attached to each hand and still show when extended out.

Step 9. Glue a hand at each end. Be sure that when folded together the "Love You..." can be on top of the accordion folded center paper showing the "This Much".

Step 10. On the back of the hand write whose hands they are and the year. We wrote: Handmade for you from Hey, Happy Father's Day 2012.

Lessons learned:
1. Do not use foam letters if you are sending this through the mail. It created a thick bulky card. Next time I will let the girls stamp letters, or use flat stickers.
2. I would pay attention to what direction the child glues the hands to the strip, so that folded all together the thumbs and fingers line up.

This actually would be a great card/gift for anyone for any holiday like a Birthday, Mother's Day or Valentine's Day.