Mike Adamick - Dads Book of Awesome Projects: From Stilts and Super-Hero Capes to Tinker Boxes and Seesaws, 25+ Fun Do-It-Yourself Projects for Families

Afternoon Crafts

Weekend Projects

School Break Projects

For Emmeline, my sidekick and inspiration, and for Dana, who puts up with us.

If Martha Stewart and MacGyver ever hooked up and had a baby, it would look like this book.

While that would be enormously sad for the baby (Oh, look at his cute duct tape?), it is fortunate for you and your kids.

After spending years in the trenches of the home frontstay-at-home dad, classroom parent, PTA president, play-date planner, and playground palI learned that the most fun usually comes from those crazy, silly, makeshift games and inventions you come up with together on the fly.

Thats the gist of this book.

You dont need to buy that expensive crafting kit, that tool or appliance or cheap, lead-pocked plastic toy to forge memorable times with the kids. Whether you want to enjoy a rainy afternoon, spend a long, fun weekend together, or get your hands dirty with a bigger, longer project, youve probably got most of what you need in your pantry, your art bin, or maybe your storage area to have some seriously crazy fun times.

In a way, the philosophy behind this book offers a nostalgic throwback to the old school, hardscrabble childhoods of our grandparents and our parentsof our own childhoods, even. Not everything was available at the push of a button. Not everything came premade, shrouded in plastic. If you wanted to have a little fun, you had to make it yourself, using whatever parts you could find around the house.

So get ready to roll up your sleeves and work together. You never know what youll create with a little duct tape, wood, glue, and gumption. But I can promise you this: Youll have the time of your lives.

Id like to say I grew up surrounded by crafts and woodworking, that I was raised on a steady diet of glue, grit, and ingenuity, that my childhood provided a kind of feral do-it-yourselfism drenched in a fantasyland of wood, drills, and the earthy aroma of sawdust.

Or that I have some sort of actual training when it comes to transforming the everyday detritus of life into something extraordinary for the home or for play time.

But I cant.

Heres the truth: Im just some stay-at-home dad who became obsessed and overjoyed at the prospect of working with my daughter to make our own fun around the house. From planning play dates to organizing parties, from classroom parent duties to school PTA president responsibilities, I spent years assembling a bag of tricks and crafts for any moment. Over the years, I learned to master everything from the kitchen mixer to the sewing machine to the reciprocating saw.

Whether its cooking our own Play-Doh, baking up cupcakes inside eggshells, or constructing our dining room table out of a banged up Victorian-era sliding door, I loved not just making things but spending so much quality time with my crafty sidekick.

When she was a toddler and we worked on projects together, Emmeline would hold nails or screws or would hand me the right tools at the right time. As she grew older and slightly more useful, she started measuring wood for cuts or, even later, wielding the saw or the drill. She loved to sit on my lap and push all the sewing machine buttons when we made superhero capes, costumes, or clothes. One summer she was suddenly old enough to attend Construction Camp and came home with wide eyes and stories about operating a chain saw and a chop saw.

All on my own!

She was six at the time.

We both beamed with pride.

Over the years, it seemed some of the best, most joyful times we had together came when we spent rainy afternoons or long weekends coming up with some crazy project to keep us busy: a cardboard boat for plying a deluged playground, a wooden catapult to knock over blocks, a 50s-era birdhouse for the backyard. Weve built tables, bookshelves, hanging art installations, and paintings so pretty that people think we bought them at art fairs. Weve made superhero capes out of old T-shirts, turned used books into Top Secret stashes, transformed leisure jackets into beautiful dresses, and turned worn shoes into something straight out of a comic book.

All without a workshop or a tool shed.

Instead of professional training or a garage full of tools, we relied on endless tinkering and crafting, on getting our hands dirty, on perseverance and doing our best with what was available. If something failed, we simply took it apart and tried again until we got it right.

The projects in this book represent what I learned in all my years on the home front. They are broken up into three main areas: crafts you can do in one afternoon, or sometimes even faster; crafts for a weekend; and crafts to work on during longer school breaks.

In using this book, I have four overarching tips to help you forge the best times together and to create some really amazing crafts.

The projects in this book are all designed to be simple, fun projects you can do togethernot just things you assemble while the kids sit idle on the sidelines, looking bored. Believe me, Ive been there, done that, but these crafts are designed to bring you together and provide you with a guidebook for memorable moments.

If you suddenly find yourself with a lot of time on your hands and in need of a little extra fun, pull this book off the shelf and find a project youd like to work on together. Some of the crafts you have to follow exactly, while others you can use as an inspirational resource to come up with something personal and special.

In using this book, please practice your best judgment about your childs capabilities. I dont mean that in the fear-mongering, legal sense, as in For the love of god, be careful!

No way. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Thats where the term Let go comes into play.

Look, you know your kids better than anyone. When the time is right, dont be afraid to put the drill in her hand. Let him measure or hammer. Let her cut. Most of these projects are designed to let kids get their hands dirty right along with you. Some of the projects, like the swing or the seesaw, require more adult participation, but thats not to say the kids cant help with gathering supplies, measuring, drilling, or doing some installation work. In nearly all of these projects, the kids can, at the very least, take the leading role in design and decoration, using paint or colored duct tape to their hearts delight. Ive found that nothing makes a kid happier and prouder than the incredible sense of accomplishment of finishing a big project. This book aims to give you both those special moments, all while creating something useful and fun during the time you have togetherwhether its an afternoon, a long weekend, or a summer break.