Giving Framed Art as Gifts

I have two fun ideas that would make great gifts that use picture frames.  They are really easy to pull together and make for a very personalized and cute gift.

This first idea was one my sister and I did for Father's Day this year as a surprise for our husbands as well as our dad.  It is pretty self explanitory and SO easy to put together.  I bought the letters at Hobby Lobby and painted them different colors.  The heart is a piece of pink felt that I cut to be a heart.  All you need to do is take a picture while holding the different parts of "We <3 U", print it out, and put it into a frame.  I got this frame at Hobby Lobby as well.  So for a total cost of $15, this was a really great gift that my husband brought to his office and enjoys every day. The good news is that you don't have to do it just for Father's Day.  You can use this idea for any holiday or birthday!

The next gift that I wanted to talk about is this fun photo holder.  My mom made this one, but she showed me how she put it together.  Here is a little mini tutorial for you.

You begin with an old frame.  This one is a little bigger than an 11X14 I think.  If you don't have an old frame on hand, you can get a frame at the local thrift store, add a coat of paint and use it just as easily.  You will also need some fun fabric, some sort of twine or jute, mini clothes pins, and cute photos.

My mom then got a piece of cardboard that was cut to the size of her frame.  Then she cut the fabric to the same size.  Next, she added some glue to the edge of the cardboard and placed the fabric in position. For this project, she used the elmers craft glue.  My mom said that it is pretty powerful stuff.  It isn't your typical Elmer's glue that you can use to peel off like skin. (You know you've done it before.)

Once it has dried, just use a staple gun to attach it to the frame.  Flip it over and use the staple gun to attach the jute to the frame.  There is no exact science to this.  Just put it wherever looks right.

Now you can add the photos of your cuties or leave it empty for the person who is receiving the gift to fill it up with cute faces.  It is a fun and personalized gift that anyone would love to get.  

Birthday Surprises and Banners

My oldest daughter turned 3 last Thursday. I can't be old enough to have a 3 year old, and yet, here I am.  She is one of the smartest, funniest, sweetest, most beautiful little girls I know. 

For her birthday, I thought it would be fun to surprise her when she woke up in the morning.  My husband and I (but mostly me) blew up about 100 balloons and filled her room with them. 

When she woke up and saw the balloons everywhere we didn't get the initial response we were looking for. She said, "Why is this a mess?" Once we told her that it was ok that her room was a mess with balloons and started playing with them, she decided that it was pretty awesome and had fun with them all day. Check out this awesome bed head.

I got the balloons at Walmart for $4 a bag of 75.  A pretty inexpensive way to make a birthday extra special.  Also, I used an air pump to blow them up.  I am pretty sure I would have died if I had blown them all up by mouth. 

Another thing that I wanted to show is actually something that I made two years ago for her 1st birthday party.  I wanted to create a birthday banner that I could reuse every year that would never go out of style.  I love the way that it turned out.  I used doodle bug paper and am so glad that I did since it is so timeless.  This is what it looked like the first year that I made it.

And now what it looked like this year.  It still looks brand new and will be the perfect birthday sign for every girl birthday at our house.  If I ever have a boy, I will make a boy version as well.  Until then, this works perfectly for us.

Overall, I like to use inexpensive and simple ways to make a birthday special, and these were perfect for that.