(AD) One of the great things about having children is it makes gifts and cards for family really easy. What could be cuter than a card designed by a small child? Why would I ever need to write a card when I can get one of my daughters to do it for me? It brings a whole new level to being personalised, but don’t think that means it all needs to be home made.  By combining your children’s art work and a photo companies products you can make something truly special. We have worked with ASDA Photo to create these special and totally one off gifts for Father’s day.

My children were so excited to see their images on the game

Personalised and Unique Father’s Day Present Ideas 

Pairs or Memory Game Using Children's Artwork

Even if your child doesn’t like to draw or paint I’m sure they come home from school or nursery with regular pieces of art. It’s impossible to display all of these, but it’s a shame for them to just go in the bin or a box never to be seen again. 

I created this Photo Memory Game using 25 of the pieces of artwork made by my children. It makes a lovely game and keepsake. My children were really excited to see their designs on the cards when it was delivered and I think it looks really good. We included drawings, paintings and collages (otherwise known as "sticking" in this house) all of them worked really well.

This was really easy to create from the images I had taken with my phone. I simply uploaded them to the website and it pulled them on to the cards. A few of the images then needed cropping, but most required no editing. The only small frustration is that the dimensions of the cards are slightly narrower than A4 paper so some of the pictures had to be partly cropped out. Something to bear in mind if creating pictures specifically for this. 

Quick Tip for Taking Photographs of Children's Art using an iPhone

A quick tip for taking photos of the art work is to make sure the camera is directly above the paper so the image looks rectangular and not warped. An easier option for those with iPhones is the free scanning tool inside the notes app which automatically adjusts the image to remove warping. To use this create a new note, click the camera icon and it will give you the option to scan documents. Put the art on a contrasting plain background eg a table or floor then you can capture the image and if it’s not exactly central it will correct it and make the picture clearer. I then screenshot this to get it quickly into my photo album.

Some of the artwork used to create the game

Best Daddy Ever Mug (Handwritten)

Asda Photo has a range of mug designs that you can upload your own photographs to or just add a name, but I decided to create something really special. My middle daughter is just learning to write and I wanted to capture that adorable early writing style as well as make something cute so I got her to write “Best Daddy ever” on one sheet of paper and draw a picture of him on another. This took a little while due to her tendency to confuse her “b”s and “d”s, but we got there. I took photographs of the writing and the drawing and used an app to crop them and combine them into one rectangular image which I uploaded to a mug.

There are plenty of mug design options on the website including ones you can add multiple photos to, some of that nursery artwork would look great on them. You can also choose which shape mug you want and if you want the printing mat, gloss or magic (so it appears when warm drinks are added).

I absolutely love the end result and I know it’s going to be a hit on Father’s Day, so much so my partner might worry about using the mug. The beauty is that I still have the artwork (and it’s saved on the website) so if we accidentally smash the mug we can easily replace it. In the past I have hand painted ceramics with my children, but they are too precious to use which means we never really see them. I love that this mug is such a perfect capture of my daughter's current development, yet we can easily buy another one if required.

The message was handwritten, photographed then uploaded to ASDA Photo

Maybe Daddy needs to start shaving more often?

Smiling Faces Photo Block

I also decided to order a photo block to make my partner’s desk more exciting. This glass chunky design stands up on it’s own and looks great. It comes in a choice of two sizes and this is the larger one (21cm x 15cm). It was too tough to choose a single piece of art work so I decided to use one of my favourite recent images of my three smiling children together. It looks great.

This photo block is a great way to display photographs on shelves or a desk

There are lots of great gift ideas on the Asda Photo website making it hard to choose which one you want, but really easy to design your item when you have. We have previously received a photobook from Asda Photo too and I love how great quality the items are. Having been inspired for this post I now have a folder on my phone with the best of the pictures my children create and I will be creating more gifts soon. Don't forget to capture the moment of unpacking presents on camera to keep nice memories forever -  convert video to mp4 to store on any convenient media or share these moments online!

If you are looking for more cute designs then check out this post on creating footprint artwork for Father's Day cards.

Disclosure: items were kindly gifted for inclusion in this post.