Jar of Hearts for special Daddies: DIY Father’s Day gift

This year we nearly missed Father’s Day (March 19th in Italy) completely. It had sort of slipped my mind to make something with the kids for my husband until that very morning, so I quickly racked my brain for a DIY gift idea that we could make in a very short time after school. Then I suddenly thought that we could make a special jar with little paper hearts with lovey-dovey messages on them. That way, when he’s feeling down, he can take one out and remember how much he is loved. This totally cost-free gift is a perfect idea not only for Father’s Day, but also for Mother’s or Grandparent’s Day, Valentine’s Day, a birthday, or whatever other special occasion when you want to show someone how much you love him or her.

Considering the extremely short time we had to complete this project, I didn’t take photos along the way, but this is so simple that there’s really no need for them. First we chose a jar that we liked. I got Sofia started cutting out hearts from colored construction paper while I spray painted the lid and cut out a piece of paper for the label.

Sofia decorated the label. I’d suggested that we should call it “Jar of Hugs” but she ended up writing “Jar of Hearts,” so thus it remained and we glued it onto the side of the jar. At school she’d made a little heart from notebook paper that opened up to show a cute picture of her Daddy and “Papà ti amo” (Daddy, I love you). (And when the other kids saw what she was doing, she taught them all how to fold paper and cut out their own hearts, kind of like when she showed them all how to wind the yarn around the class’s Hopi Eye ornaments.) So we decided to glue it to the lid so that it could be opened up like a little card.

And the last step was to write short and sweet love notes on each heart. She ran out of ideas pretty quickly, so I helped her a bit here. Simple words like: kisses, love, the best, my favorite Daddy, wonderful, sweet Daddy, super love, so great, etc….

Into the jar they went and we were done! My husband *loved* it and told Sofia that it was the best gift that he’d ever gotten. So I’d say that it was a pretty successful gift, especially considering the fact that it didn’t cost anything and that we made it start to finish in about 20- 30 minutes.

What was the best gift that you’ve ever gotten or given for Father’s/Mother’s/Grandparent’s Day?