Elmer's Craft and Tell Party- Father's Day Crafting

I was fortunate enough to be asked to host an Elmer's "Craft and Tell" party this month. They sent me a box loaded to gills with all kinds of crafting tools and goodies! My instructions were to CRAFT and then TELL you about it. (Well there were a few more instructions than that, but you get the point). Not only will I tell you about the fabulous party that we had, but Elmer's wants to give away more amazing prize packages to two of my readers! More details at the end of this post.

You know I work in themes and given the timing it seemed natural to focus on the guys for Father's Day. I also really wanted to include my daughter. She is old enough to do projects with now and loves the chance for a little creative expression, so we decided to make our party a Mother/Daughter party where we could work together on a few projects for the men/dads in our lives in time for Father's Day.

I finally jumped on the mustache bandwagon for the first time with this party. It just seemed to fit. In addition to our water cups (basic white party cups from the dollar store--I free-handed the various mustaches with a Sharpie marker), I used a large mustache on the invitation saying, "We {mustache} you to come to our Father's Day Craft and Tell Party." It may have taken them a minute to figure it out, but you get it, right?

My daughter's friend, knew just what to do with her cup! We had some POPcorn and milkDADs DUDs, as well as other delicious snacks that our guests brought to keep us crafting.

Each guest got to start with their own cutting mat, exacto knife, scissors (really nice and sharp!), glues and adhesives and these giant foam core blank cards--the perfect way to tell dad that you love him in a BIG way!

Here are some of the guests hard at work on their cards and here are just a couple of the awesome cards created by our mother/daughter duos (and trios)!

I also made some templates so that our guests could make the tie banner and/or gift bags I blogged about in my Tie-riffic Father's Day post.

I'm showing how we put together the original.

Here's Cindy tracing the ties. While her daughter diligently lays out her pattern.

It was fun to see the different combos that came together with the different paper choices.

I blogged about the shirt gift bags before, but I found blue lunch bags at Walmart this time, and it was fun to mix these up by using a colorful "shirt".  I used the Elmer's glue dots to attach buttons to the lapels, which made for a really fun accent!

We were doing a really good job staying focused on our masculine theme, until Bethany (artist extraordinaire) discovered and fell in love with the Elmers Painters pens.

And they were just begging to be made into swirly flowery designs.

They are really fun to play around with! I loved this Father's Day card using the painters, because you can tell how opaque they are.

Notice her blond hair on top of the brown paper? So cute!

I was also pleasantly surprised by the gel pens. I've never had good luck with them in the past, but these rolled on smoothly and evenly, and most of them were sparkly.

So, again, sidetracked from the Father's Day projects, but lots of fun!

I wasn't able to get pictures of all of my guests' creations, but have been promised more pictures and plan to post them on my Facebook wall and link them up with Elmers, so everyone can see all of the fabulous things we were able to do with their fun products!

For more information on how we made the Tie Banner and the shirt gift bags, you can read this post. And now's your chance to get your own amazing set of crafting supplies from Elmers, including:

• 3  CraftBond Tape Runners 3 Mini Bi-fold 9x12 Foam Board packs 
• 3  X-ACTO Retract-a-Blade knives
• 3  CraftBond Extra Strength Glue Sticks
• 1 Painters Markers pack
• 1 X-ACTO Decorative Edge Scissors pack
• 1 Circle Cutter
• 1 X-ACTO Self-Healing Mat 
• 2 Photo Corners packs (various colors) 
• 1 Glue Dots pack
• 1 Gel Pens pack
• 1 Tacky Glue bottle

I will be selecting TWO winners randomly to receive one of these prize packages (must be US resident to win)! AND that is not all, I'm also going to select my favorite comment to get my bonus prize: A $7.00 Gift Card to Wendy's for some Frostys in honor of Wendy's Father's Day Frosty Weekend! 50 cents from each Frosty purchased will be donated to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption on Father's Day weekend (June 18 & 19). These donations will be used to benefit the cause of Wendy's Wonderful Kids, which is a program that helps foster children in need find great homes. (See the Frosty FB page for more info).

All you need to do is leave me a comment telling me what you are giving someone for Father's Day this year, or the favorite gift you have given for a Father's Day in the past. If you can't think of anything just say something like "I love your blog!" and I'll still enter you in the Elmer's drawing! I'll be picking the comment with my favorite gift idea to win the Wendy's card! Please make sure your email address is in the comment or set-up for replying to your comment! If I have to work too hard to find you, I'll pick someone else. I'll be selecting winners on Monday (June 20) so hurry! 

Big thanks to Elmer's! We had a great time being creative together and everyone LOVED the great products!

What are you GIVING for Father's Day?