No More Ties

Go beyond store-bought cards, ties and cakes this year and celebrate Father's Day with homemade crafts and foods. Kids will have a great time making them; fathers will love receiving them. From a collage of your child's favorite photographs to a sandwich fit for a hero, the following projects use household supplies and produce truly memorable results.

FATHER'S DAY PHOTO HOUSE

With a few art supplies, family photos and a little adult supervision, your kids can make the picture-perfect Father's Day gift: a house-shaped photo frame that's modeled after your own home.

Use crayons or colored markers to draw your house on heavyweight white paper. Include a window for each family member. With a craft knife (adults only), cut out window openings. Place a photo behind each one and tape the photo edges in place.

Use scissors to cut along the house outline. Place the cutout face-down and spread glue along the outside edges. Mount the art on a piece of cardboard and trim the backing so that it is flush with the art. To make a frame stand, cut a 3-inch-wide cardboard strip that is half the height of the house. Fold the strip in half vertically, line it up with the frame bottom, and glue one side to the back of the frame.

WALLET COLLAGE

A "World's Greatest Dad" T-shirt may be nice, but this wallet-size collage is a gift Dad will really welcome. Cut a credit-card-size rectangle out of poster board. Have your kids decorate both sides with messages, stickers, drawings and glued-on photographs. To make the card sturdier, cover it on both sides with clear Con-Tact paper or run it through the laminator at your local copy shop (about $2). Dad can keep the card in his wallet and take it with him wherever he goes--a reminder of who loves him best of all.

PUPPY DOG PENCIL HOLDER

The next time Dad needs someone to fetch him a pencil, this desktop dog can deliver. It's made out of four pinch-style wooden clothespins, craft glue, felt, googly eyes and a pom-pom.

To form the front end of the dog, pinch open a clothespin and apply glue to the inner surface of the opened end. Then, clamp the glued end onto a second clothespin, just behind the metal spring. For the dog's tail end, glue and clamp together the last two clothespins so that one holds the other wide open. When the glue is dry, fit the opened end of the back half onto the lower end of the front half, as pictured. Apply glue to bond the two sections.

From the felt, cut out floppy ears and circular paws. Glue them, the googly eyes and the pom-pom nose onto the dog. If your child wishes, he can add spots or other distinguishing details with craft paints or colored markers. Finally, pinch open the dog's mouth and insert a pencil, balancing its weight equally on both sides.