Happy Father's Day!

This Father's Day was my husband's first, so I wanted to do something special! He did get me a little something for Mother's Day even though I was not even a mom quite yet. His birthday happened to be the same week as Father's Day, so we had quite the task on our hands - good thing I started thinking ahead of time!

Before I bought him anything, my husband said he wanted a few new drivers and woods (those are golf clubs for the non-golfers). The clubs he wanted were quite expensive, so that meant I had a very small budget to work with in regards to his special gift from our son and me.

I can't take full credit, because the idea was inspired by a similar-type gift that a friend of mine gave her husband on his first Father's Day, but I did all the props, poses, photos, editing and assembling myself (hey, that's a lot to do with a 3 week old!!)

I will post each picture I used as well as a photo of the final product! :)

This was a fun project and it was pretty simple and very inexpensive!

Before the baby was born, I bought several different fabric segments from Jo-Ann Fabric to make throw pillows and a quilt for the nursery. Since I never got around to that (yet!), I have a bunch of fabric to use as backgrounds in photos. So, I found the most neutral swatch of fabric and draped it over the side and floor of the deck creating a little studio. Since I know that natural light is the absolute best light for photos on any camera, I wanted to do them outside, so I chose the deck.

I found the wooden letters from Michaels - obviously for repeat letters in a name, you do not need multiple letters.

I used my iPhone 5 and took as many poses of my son with each letter as I could think of. Also, I took A LOT of photos...I wasn't afraid to snap TONS of pictures - my photo stream was probably clogged with over 50 pictures from this shoot! It was fun to see all his funny faces & body positions! Ooh! Another tip - we received the Boppy Newborn Lounger as a gift and even though I considered returning it (feeling that we had plenty of 'seats' to put the baby in as a newborn), I kept it and have found it the most useful of any seats, bouncers, swings or cradles! It's like a giant pillow with an indent in the middle to set the baby in. I put this under the fabric and it was a perfect place to pose the baby for photos.

I used the free photoshop expess app for the Apple App store to edit my favorite images, then had the photos printed with the Walgreens App. (It is a very useful app for printing from your iPhone!)

The hardest part was finding a 5-opening frame. I found one on Walmart's website, but of course I was last minute on this project, so ordering anything online was out of the question. I was able to find a 5-frame separate set on clearance at Kohl's, so I bought it and decided I could either get a new one or hang these 5 on the wall together somewhere.

Well, here is the final product!!

Daddy loved it and Mick loved giving it to him! Happy Birthday and Happy Father's Day!