Smile please
You will need:
1 willing child
1 sheet of magnetic paper
1 card blank
A camera
A pc and printer
Assorted embellishments
A way of attaching the magnet to the card - we went for a mini peg
Ask your child what they want to say in their card. Ideally you're looking for 3 or 4 words that aren't can we go swimming, are we going swimming now or I can swim with one armband. Clearly that's far too many words. We settled on I love you daddy.
For each word decide on a picture that represents that word. You can go for the easy option of holding signs, go for YMCA style cheerleader letters (Give me an I), act out the word or use props. When I told the small one that I would be taking a picture of her making an I, she grabbed her magnifying glass. Kids will often think of something much more interesting than us mere parents.
Once you have your pictures, shrink them to about 25% (or they will probably be too big to do anything with unless you have a super duper uber amount of memory), and line them on top of each other photobooth style
Print on to your magnetic paper and cut to size.
Then you just need to attach to the front of your card and decorate as you wish. I had some star beads so wrote daddy on the front with a sharpie. Mill is very excited about reading at the moment so this appealed to her.
We've also gone for a useful home made gift. The hippy in me is rather in to upcycling as those who follow me on pinterest will know. Unfortunately the things I find that look great would require me actually buying the products brand new to upcycle, which probably defeats the point of this exercise (hanging monkeys bowl I'm looking at you). Since I have zero ability to let go of the small ones baby clothes I decided to do something useful with those.
When is a dress not a dress?
Now, I made a bit of a faff of this I admit, so there will be a round two with real instructions. But here is the theory...
You will need:
2 / 3 different fabrics - I used a pair of the small ones jeans and her old dress
A sewing machine and cotton
Fabric paint (I used dylon 3D)
Dressmakers carbon paper
Snap fastening or velcro
Fabric 1 (outside main colour) : 6 inch x 4 1/2 inch square (x 2), 3 inch x 2 1/2 inch square
Fabric 2 (outside border colour ) : 2 1/4 inch x 4 1/2 inch square (x 2), 3 inch x 2 1/2 inch square
Fabric 2 or 3 (lining) : 8 inch x 4 1/2 inch square (x 2)
hem width : 1/4 inch
Sew together the two small squares of fabric. Trim the bottom corners and turn the correct way around. This will form our fastening.
Sew each of the three types of fabric together. The fastening should be sewn in place so it sits on the outside of the case and flaps down.
If you want to make a padded case, you will need a piece of fusible bonding or lining fabric and place behind the lining fabric.
Once you have two long pieces of the case place face together and sew around 3 edges, leaving the top lining edge open. Iron the hemmed edges and turn the right way around . Sew the lining edge.
Iron the top edge of the case so the lining sits correctly and add the fastening to the edge of the fastening square so the glasses are secure.
Once you have all of that you can decorate it (or not - the next one I
make will be for me and wont have kiddy pictures on it). I asked the
small one to draw a picture of daddy which I then transferred on to the
fabric with the carbon paper and painted over.
Holidays really are coming!!!
