A Gift Dad Will Love

It has been such a joy watching Matthew evolve into the role of Dad. Our kids adore him, and its no wonder why. He’s funny. He’s tender. He’s creative with each of them.

Elias is especially a Daddy’s boy, so with Father’s Day around the corner I wanted to do something special that captured their relationship.

Hallmark sent me a box of some fun Dad products for Father’s Day and in it was the perfect gift – one of their customizable Dad frames, which are a collaboration with Shutterfly.

Have you seen these in store before? They offer a variety of designs. (Regular price is $24.95, but they are on sale in store for just $14.95 with any purchase right now.)

I went through my recent photos and remembered that I took some photos of Matthew and Elias racing on the beach in April. In the photos, you can see Elias’s joy and almost hear his giggles.

The frame comes with a code for Shutterfly to upload your photo and have the customized cut-out mailed to you at no additional charge.

I uploaded the photo and realized that I wanted to make the frame even more special, so I went into photoshop and added the text, “You’re My Best Daddy” -Elias. That is something that both our kids say, and I thought it was a fun way to personalize it. (You could easily add text to a photo using PicMonkey too.)

(An important note: The frame will allow up to three photos, but I found that if the composition, color, etc. isn’t the same, it was difficult to make multiple photos look good.)

I then reuploaded the photo to Shutterfly, added it to my cart and bam it was done.

It arrived about a week later and I was tickled with how it had turned out. I now want to buy one for everyone I know.

Elias and I are both terrible with surprises and so we decided to give it to Matthew early. He loved the gift, but I think he loved Elias’s joy in giving it to him even more.

Matthew has it sitting on his desk and I love that it is prominently displayed in our home.

Father’s Day is a chance to show you care. To me, it isn’t about big fancy gifts, but instead about celebrating the love and father-child relationship. I’m glad for gifts like this that make it easy to do just that.

How are you planning to celebrate Father’s Day this year? Be sure to plan to join in the blog Father’s Day fun for this week’s Throwback Thursday Stories. We are doing the theme of Dads – your dad, your grandpa, the first time your husband became a dad – anything dad-related is fair game! And there will be a cool Dad giveaway. 🙂