"The Best Of" Shadow Box Gift

My husband's grandpa just turned 80 and I knew I had to come up with something special to celebrate this huge milestone. After some thought, I came up with the idea for a shadow box that featured all of the best things from the year he was born, which happened to be 1933. I started by having my mother-in-law hunt down an old baby picture of Jack (he was a twin too!).

 Then I used The People History for my information on what was happening during that year in history. I chose the topics of popular culture, who else was born that year, and how much things cost when narrowing down my focus.

It was as easy as finding a piece of scrapbook paper I liked for the background, using my Cricut to cut out the lettering (you could simply do this by hand or print it off of your computer), and printing off the information with a few pictures to make it more interesting. I did my magic with a trusty glue stick and the gift had come altogether.

Once it was in the shadow box (which I picked up at Hobby Lobby for 50% off!) it made a great addition to the table at thebirthday party that displayed different pictures of Jack over the years. Happy 80th Birthday Jack!

I think this gift would also be a great way to commemorate an anniversary or any other fun date in history you are celebrating. I know I found it fascinating to look back a ways in time and see what memorable things had taken place.

Featured on The Happy Housewives 100 Days of Homemade Christmas Gifts (2013):

We Love You Mom - Family Tree Shadow Box

This is a little late...Mother's Day was last month, I know. But my mom lives in Arizona and since we knew my parents were coming to visit in June, we decided to collectively celebrate birthdays, Mother's Day and Father's Day when they got here. One big party if you will! Because of that I didn't want to post this project early and ruin the surprise for my mom - So is born the Mother's Day craft post in June!

I saw this idea on Pinterest but unfortunately I don't know the original creator because when I click on the link it says it was flagged for spam. So if you know who gets credit for this, let me know so I can share here. Anyway, I decided to expand on this idea and make it for my mom from all her kids and grand kids. A family tree of sorts. I started by printing out the words I wanted to use on various colored card stock so that I could mix and match.

I then free handed a tree out of this cute polka dot paper. There is just something fun about the idea of a polka dot tree, don't you think?

 Initially I was going to glue the tree directly to my background but it just didn't pop like I had hoped it would so I glued the tree to an orange piece of paper and cut a border around my original tree. Now it pops!

 From there, I cut leaves out of the words as well as some blank leaves in the same colors. I glued as I went until the tree came together.

 Then I added some accents to the leaves using different markers and some glitter nail polish to make the main message stand out. Using Google Image, I found a chick and squirrel silhouette and printed them off to add some life to the tree.

Chick silhouette - just copy image, paste into Word, size as you want

Squirrel silhouette - just copy image, paste into Word, size as you want

Into the shadow box it went (I got this one for 40% off using a coupon at Hobby Lobby) and here's the finished product:

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Looking for more great Mother's Day gift ideas that are from the heart (and won't break the budget)?  Or maybe you have an idea you would like to share with the world. Check out the Mother's Day Your Way Contest over at NerdWallet - http://www.nerdwallet.com/coupons/contests/