Dad's Day on a Dime!

Father's Day is always fun here in our house.
We get to do "projects". These "projects" consist of Little B making Father's Day gifts.

He is so excited to get started...can you sense his excitement?
Every year we do some sort of hand/ foot print art.
Last year we did his hand on a mug, this year we are making a t-shirt.

We went to Michaels Crafts first thing this morning and spent $8.23 on 2 blank T-shirts ( we were either going to make 2 shirts or have a practice shirt ) and a bottle of fabric paint.

I used the lid to one of the restaurant take out containers to pour the paint into and a square of cardboard to put inside the shirt so the paint wouldn't bleed through to the other side.

First I put the cardboard divider inside the shirt and smoothed it out.

I wanted the little hands to look like they had been pulling on the bottom of his shirt. ( this is the side of the shirt so we will have 1 hand in front and 1 in back.)

I was going to have him dip his hands in the paint but I feared that would be a huge mess.
Instead, I painted his hands with a brush ( which tickled...a lot ) .

Fortunately he is at the age where he can set his hand flat with his fingers spread a bit .
I remember trying to get his foot print impression for Christmas ornaments when he was  4 months old and he would dig his toes in.
Then hand prints for the first Father's Day gifts, he would grab the fabric.
It is MUCH easier to capture his prints now.

I did guide his hands to the shirt and applied a little pressure to the tops once he set them down.

This is our end result.

Note : The fabric paint washed right off of his hands very easily.

Dad will love it!

This is a cake blog right?!
So here's the Father's Day cake recipe.
Brandon Sr. LOVES carrot cake and he claims that I make a " mean carrot cake" , which actually IS  a compliment .
This is my carrot cake recipe, it's a favorite in our house and I have also used it for a wedding cake and it held up great!

save and print jpeg

Use this with my Cream Cheese Icing recipe.

save and print jpeg

I decorate our mean carrot cakes with a " mean carrot" made of orange fondant with white fondant sculpted teeth and eyes and black eyebrows.
I extrude some green fondant through a clay extruder for the stems and leaves.
Trim the ends of the stems and cut those pieces into smaller strips and press them horizontally on the stems for leaves.

Happy Father's Day!