Make It Monday: Appreciation Book

I'm just getting around to posting about Leighton's father's Day present. (How long ago was Father's Day???) I have about 5 posts that need to be written up. I may be just a little behind. It's possible.

Leighton got 3 new suits for Father's Day, but we wanted to make him something special also. The kids and I decided on a book to show our appreciation and love for him. I started by cutting one panel of a cereal box in half. I then measured and cut a piece of construction paper to fit the pieces and glued them on. For the pages, we folded construction paper in half and cut them to size. 

I searched for some poems to include in our book. We chose 4 and changed a few words to portray what we wanted. We also added some pics of the family. I tried printing one of Leighton and the kids on regular ol' printer paper. It looked awful! The colors were wrong and the picture was distorted. I set it on the counter upside down and noticed that the back looked like one of those pictures you get at Chuck E Cheese. I used a pencil to darken up the lines and voilà! Our own sketch!

Jake and Alyssa each gave me a list of "I love Daddy because. . . " and colored him a picture. One of Alyssa's reasons was that he "hugs me and puts me to bed" and one of Jake's was "He reads me his Bible." So precious! Zac is still a little young to make his own list, but I'm sure it would have something to do with food.

 

My mom helped me paint each child's hand and place it on a page. That was interesting to say the least! A 19 month old does not quite understand the importance of keeping his fingers spread and not moving them around the paper. Surprisingly, it took only 2 tries to get a decent print. Alyssa especially enjoyed this part. We painted each hand twice and made multiple prints all over the newspaper. She even wanted to paint her feet. Jake giggled every time I brushed the paint on his hand because it tickled. I did make the mistake of not cutting the pages to fit before we made the hand prints. It was either cut off the bottom of Jake's hand or cut them all out. I settled on cutting each one out individually and gluing them on another piece. No harm, no foul.

Next came the fun part! I matted the things on scrapbook paper and then into the book. The kids used different shapes of hole punches and glued them. They also used stickers and stamps to decorate. My kitchen was a disaster! We had bits of paper and punches and stamps and ink everywhere! I gave them plain paper to craft on also since they were having so much fun. They were busy for a good hour punching, gluing, stamping.

Once the book was ready to go, we punched holes in the side and tied it together with yarn. We do still have 1 page left to decorate. I ran out of ideas and time. Once we complete that last page, we'll laminate it so it will last.

They were so excited to give the book to their daddy. They put so much effort and love into it. It was a special gift that we can treasure forever.