Happy Father's Day!

Hope you all have had a great Father's Day...whether you were celebrating your Father, the father of your kiddos - or any other guy that is a Daddy!

This was my first Father's Day since my Dad went home to be with the Lord - and that fact alone made me conscious of celebrating those guys that work so hard to be a good DAD to their kids.  It is hard work being a good dad!

I am sure you have your own "list of what makes a good Dad," but I thought I would share what I have been pondering today - things learned from my own Dad or from watching Royce with Weston.

You're A Good Dad If...

1. You live everyday knowing that your kids are watching what you do more than listening to what you say...and you give them a great model to follow.
2. You know that while you might be the guy with all the answers to your kiddos - you go to your Heavenly Father for the BEST ADVICE ever.
3. You know that as easy as it would be to say "YES" to your kids, you take the harder path and say NO when you need to protect them from themselves or others.
4. You "show and tell" your family that you love them.
5. You would be willing to have a tea party with your daughter and then turn around and smear cammo paint on your face and go crawl through the underbrush with your son....or your daughter, if that is what she is in to!
6. You know that YOU and your attention is more important to your son or daughter than any THING you might ever give them.
7. You can say you are "sorry" or "I was wrong."
8. You know that each of your children are different - they are motivated differently, have different interests, show their emotions differently and need different types of affirmation from you.
9. You can laugh at yourself and help your kids learn the value of not taking themselves too seriously.
10. You trust that all the work you put into raising your kids will give them a foundation to become great adults....and you treat them as a capable adult when they grow up (even though you will ALWAYS want to protect them from harm and provide for them as if they were still small).

Well...the list is longer - but these were the things that came to mind today.

So I thought I would share a few pictures of the little gifts and card that I made for Royce.  He deserves so much more - but I didn't want the day to pass without acknowledging how proud I am of him and all that he has done to raise Weston to be an incredible man. (Ok...I'm gonna stop cause I am getting all misty eyed...and who needs a soggy blog?!?!?) LOL

Can you tell that Royce's favorite color is GREEN? I had fun making this little pocket card, decorating the gift bag and putting together the tie shaped box.

I created this tie box with my Silhouette...am really enjoying the 3D projects that you can create so easily.  The paper is from Echo Park (Stripes and Dots) and because it was double sided, I was able to use the reverse side of the cuts to give the lid some contrast. I actually cut two (2) of the top tie shape to get the direction of the stripes to be at a different angle on the knot of the tie. After I added the knot section, I used a Copic Marker (T1 & T3) to add a bit of a shadow where it would overlap the rest of the tie.

 I stuffed a few sugar free treats inside the box...fun favor box...I started thinking it would be a fun thing to use for gifts for the Groom's Men at a wedding.

Here is a close up of how I decorated the kraft gift bag. (I get these at JoAnn's in a pack of 10 - and they are less than 50 cents apiece and so fun to decorate).

I stamped No. 1 Dad using the Graphic 45 alphabet stamp set onto some dictionary paper.  I then used alcohol ink (Bottle and Meadow combo) on the back side of the acrylic "R" (Heidi Swapp Ghost letters) and then used Glossy Accents to attach the stamped paper to the backside of the letter.  When it was dry I cut around the R and used the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher to staple it to the bag.  The Chevron strip is a Hero Arts Background stamp and I used the new Tim Holtz Summer Distress Ink Mowed Lawn.  Mmmmmhmmm....love those new colors!

And finally a close-up of the pocket card.  I showed you a similar design in my last post from the cards I made for my sister. I used Papertrey Ink Stamps Basic Labels (angled version) in Graphite Black Ink to stamp the all over pattern...just mixing and fitting them together...and then went back in with New Leaf ink and the two circle labels for a few accents in green.  The chevron stripes were cut with the PTI Chevron die...I LOVE these dies...there are 2 of them...but it you put them right next to each other when you run the paper through your die cutting machine, they actually cut that very THIN stripe as well....you really get 3 strips to work with...BONUS! The one other detail I thought I would share is that I trimmed the regular A2 size card (cut from 8.5 x 11 lengthwise) on one edge using a Stampin' Up Edger Die and matching embossing folder....really love that little detail of the embossed edge on the pocket.  I sewed the sides together, but I think stapling the sides would have looked pretty cool too!

So before I log out - I thought I would share one more picture from today.  One of the things that makes Royce such a great Dad is that he knows that even though his son is all grown up and is a man...that they still can be silly and PLAY!  Here they are in the golf cart...loaded up with their clubs, a bag of practice balls and headed out for some golf ....

...in the backyard! Yeah....all that work to drive the cart 20 yards to the back of the property! I think the "getting ready" was almost as much fun as the swinging of the club at the little ball that followed. I love their shares sense of humor!

Hope you have had a fantabulous day!