Quick and Easy Father's Day Crafts for Dads and Grandpas

It's nearly Father's Day, and if the men in your life are anything like mine, they already have everything they need. This leaves me searching for new ideas every year. Here are a couple of gifts we have made that the Dads and Grandpas loved:

Battery Garden


One Christmas, we gave my father-in-law a pack of batteries to power a new lantern that was separately wrapped. He opened the batteries first and went on and on about how he loved them and always needed batteries. Even after he opened the lantern, he told us how much he loved the batteries. So, it made me realize that men really do always need batteries, so why not make a cute little garden out of them and give them as a gift? My four-year-old decorated it herself and it was a fun project. I just helped cut holes in the boxes to hold the sticks, and added a little glue at their bases to hold the heavier batteries.

She had fun making it, and the Grandfathers both thought it was really cute. Be sure to tell them that they're new batteries so they'll be able to use them!

Painted T-shirts with Hand Prints and Footprints


Painted T-shirts are are a fun and simple gift, and my daughter always loves getting paint all over her, so be sure to wear old clothes if you make them! All you need is fabric paint (available at most craft stores) and plain T-shirts (they're cheaper at Wal-Mart, Dollar General, or a similar store than they are at craft stores).

Here are a few hand print / footprint designs:

"World's Best Daddy, Hands Down" with hand prints

"Best Granddaddy, Hands Down" with hand prints 

"My Granddaughter Walks All Over Me" with footprints

The best part of painting your own T-shirts is that you can customize them with whatever you call the Dads and Grandfathers in your life: Papa, Papaw, Grandpa, etc. Then, there's the added bonus of just getting messy with paint, so have fun with it!

How to Make a Ruffled Heart T-shirt

So, I have all these colorful T-shirts that I've been using for crafts, and I love the look of those little girls' ruffled heart t-shirts. I happened to have a colorful Tangerine Tango T-shirt and my daughter had a plain white T-shirt, so I decided to put one together myself.

To make the ruffles, take the T-shirt you'll use for the heart and cut it into strips about 2 inches wide. The T-shirt I used had seams down each side from the armpit to the hem, so I cut horizontally along the bottom of the T-shirt then trimmed the seam off each side to get the strip you see here. Doing that would make two of these. If your T-shirt doesn't have seams down each side, you would end up with a large loop after each horizontal cut which you could cut in two to give you these strips.

To turn your strips into a ruffle, stitch a long stitch down the middle of the strip (I set my machine on the longest setting - 5), and do not back-stitch the beginning or the end of your stitch.

Hold the strip at one end, and pull one of the threads (either the top or bottom, but not both) in one direction (toward you) while pushing the material in the other direction (away from you).

You'll end up with a ruffle like this! Space the ruffles evenly by sliding the material along the thread, then place it onto your T-shirt and pin it into place. Continue making the ruffles and placing them onto your T-shirt until you have the size and placement you want.

You'll want to be sure to place the centers of the ruffles as close to one another as possible, otherwise when you wash it, you'll end up with gaps inside the heart in which the T-shirt underneath shows through.

Once you have everything pinned, simply sew the ruffles onto the shirt (taking extra care not to hit any pins!), and you're done!