IKEA-Inspired Father's Day Gift

This daddy at home is a hands-on father who serves his children really well. Ewan and Faye receive head massages at bath times, drink specially concocted cold choco milk as treats and listen to the most dramatic bed-time stories at night. So this Father's Day, we are going to serve him instead.

IKEA gave us the freedom to choose anything we need at their mega stores to work on this Father's Day craft. We arrived at the store without any preconceived plan and it is amazing how walking through the aisles of inspiring room setups could conjure up a thousand ideas in my head. As I pushed my trolley, with Faye on my hip and Ewan pulling on my leg because they refused to sit in the trolley, I started filling my cart with everything I think we might need for this craft project. 

With all these in our shopping cart, what do you think our grand plan might be?

We served daddy home-made popcorns, his favourite Florida Natural Orange Juice and presented him with a Daddy'O Collage made by the children! Many a times, simple acts of services can touch the heart of a man. As the saying goes, "The Way To A Man's Heart Is Through His Stomach". To make it real for Ewan and Faye, we set up a market stand and had them dressed in matching "uniforms". They role-played as little wait staff for daddy, filling cones of popcorns and toppling Orange Juice over him *woops* Funny how in most pictures, these junior waiters were serving themselves with mouthfuls of popcorns instead! I wonder who bagged away with the most joy at the end of the day.

[1] DADDY'O COLLAGE
What better way than getting the children to make an artwork out of the familiar superhero face in their lives. When daddy comes home from work, Ewan and Faye will run straight into their daddy's embrace with a big welcoming squeal, "DADDY!" Maybe I should go to work too so that they will miss me as much!

What You Will Need
- Rolls of SLÅENDE and FRAMSTÄLLA Gift Wrappers
- 1 Bottle of Glue
- 1 Piece of A4 MÅLA Paper
- 1 Black MÅLA Whiteboard Pen

First, tear up pieces of paper to make up daddy's hair, face, eyes, spectacles and clothes. Children love cutting and tearing so just let them tear away to their hearts' content.

Secondly, separate the colours by body parts and let them sink into a belly-aching laughter with a funny looking daddy.

Thirdly, get them to work on pasting the pieces together. This is way easier than jigsaw because you do not have to find the right pieces to fit together. Make it abstract, cartoony or professionally life-life. It is all up to you.

Lastly, give daddy his nose and mouth with a marker.

We slotted the collage into the frame provided by the SKYLTA market stand and gave daddy a surprise when we invited him to our popcorn stall!

[2] MARKET STAND SET-UP
The SKYLTA market stand is made up of nine pieces of corrugated board. It was so simple to set up that I took only 15 minutes in total including unwrapping. I am still in disbelief about how clever the business development team in Sweden is to make a children's plaything so simple to put together at such affordable prices.

With the many decorative party sets available at IKEA, we decked up the market stand with buntings and streamers just to make it look more celebratory. This 13-piece MYTISK party set comes with party hats, DIY buntings and streamers. Instead of using the party hats as hats, I filled it up with popcorn and made it like a Kaching Puteh holder. Oh how versatile!

There are two empty shelves on the SKYLTA market stand. I filled them up with a FEJKA potted plant on one side and MYTISK party cups with daddy's favourite drink on the other. Plants add a touch of colour and life to any kind of set up. So do remember to include them to create a natural warmth.

[3] GREENHOUSE TURNED POPCORN STAND
When I first saw SOCKER greenhouse on the shelves months ago, I fell in love with it immediately. I had to bring it home this time and it looked like it will make a perfect popcorn holder! It is not the conventional popcorn cart but it is all glass with a large opening on the top to make scooping a breeze for the children. We found the GRÄSMARÖ gardening set's spade the right tool for scooping up the popcorns too!

As with most IKEA products, the greenhouse requires simple assembly. No screws were needed and we got it fixed up rather quickly too. Do not forget to give it a good wash before putting food in there!

Note: I bought a 32oz or 709g popcorn pack from Cold Storage and cooked it over the stove with the children. One packet fills the greenhouse beautifully.

We had such a fun morning upping role-play to another level with real food, drinks and servers! By the end of our popcorn breakfast, we packed up by sealing several bags of popcorns for our neighbours, security guards and cleaners. What a win for everyone!

How do you like our IKEA inspired Father's Day gift? You know this could make a perfect birthday party prop as well right? The best thing out of these is that every single item can be re-purposed again for another project or for everyday use. For example, the greenhouse was turned into a proper greenhouse for our patio after we cleaned it up. The gift wrappers are obviously used to wrap presents and the left-over party set will be put aside for the next party!

Father's Day falls on Sunday, 19th of June 2016, and we celebrated early because daddy will be in school for a full day of class on the actual day. I also took the chance to put this together two weeks in advance to inspire you moms who are at wits' end on what to get for the men who is under-celebrated as a dads.

This is a sponsored post by IKEA. However, all ideas and creativity are my own.

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A stay at home mum, blogging to widen her social life. 
We want to echo the sound of love through our lives to inspire other mothers alike.