Father’s Day Gift Ideas

If you are like me and have a hard-to-buy-for hubby (no obsessive hobby like golf or tennis or collecting, etc.), please read on for some ideas that you might consider!

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T-shirt bought on Woot.com, $10 & up

I had to figure out a way to work www.woot.com into this blog entry on Father’s Day gift ideas and I finally did it – they have T-shirts for sale!! And they are really funny shirts – or at least I think my husband would think so; after all, he has a slightly deranged, dry sense of humor and likes to wear somewhat, shall we say, unusual shirts and caps.

I recently discovered www.woot.com by striking up a conversation with a very cool mom at PetsMart (hey, Tiffany!) whose son, a little older than Jack, was wearing a kid-sized Home Depot apron that was just so cute. (They had just been to one of the free Saturday seminars and made a birdhouse or something.) Turns out her husband works at woot.com in Carrollton, which I had never heard of. BUT – when I mentioned it to Jim that evening, his eyes lit up and he got a sort of dreamy look about all the cool gadgets on the site. And, every 30-yr+ old man I’ve mentioned it to since has had the same reaction, while every woman I’ve mentioned it to has stared at me blankly. Woot clearly has their target market nailed!

I just spent half an hour laughing on the site, reading the blog, and looking at the t-shirts (the website for the shirts is shirt.woot.com, but you can link to it through the home page on the right hand side). Buy your man something from woot.com and he’ll be impressed with how cool and hip you are!

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MagWear® Handyman’s Helper Magnetic Wristband, $19.95 + $6 S&H

I saw this item around Christmas-time in Real Simple last year. So did thousands of other people, apparently, because by the time I got around to ordering it, they were sold out and backordered until, well, maybe just now. I thought it was an ingenious idea, and since a frequent item on my honey-do list for Jim is hanging stuff around the house, I thought it might be an encouragement to tackle those items faster. (I have not been able to prove that theory out yet, as I just ordered it today for him from www.spoonsisters.com. Maybe by the end of summer I’ll be able to report back on any faster response time.)

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RoboGrip Auto-Adjusting Pliers, $17 + S&H

At most gift-giving occasions, I checkout Home Depot or Lowe’s to find (and usually purchase) whatever new and interesting tool they are pushing for that season. Black and Decker usually comes through with a new tool launched just at the holidays or early summer (Christmas / Father’s Day – get it?). From their end cap display, which invariably gets prominent front-of-store placement so that you have to trip over it to go anywhere else in the store, I have purchased some very cool items for Jim, including the Cordless PivotDriver Screwdriver, the Auto Wrench Adjusting Wrench, and the Bullseye Crosshair Leveling Laser. BUT – when you ask Jim which tool he uses most (after the PivotDriver, which I have even gotten the hang of because it is so easy and effective), he says it’s the RoboGrip Auto-Adjusting Pliers. Don’t ask me what he does with them, but he says he uses it a lot and it’s his second-most favorite tool (again, after the PivotDriver). So why didn’t I include the PivotDriver, you ask?? Good question: here’s a pic:

Black & Decker PivotDriver Screwdriver, ~$25

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Hyloft Ceiling Storage Unit – $59.99 + S&H

If your home storage space is as challenged as ours is, and your bank account is challenged as well, you may want to consider a “poor-woman’s” garage organizational system. One year, I bought Jim 2 of these ceiling storage units, a pegboard and pegboard hangers, and a set of steel shelves. For about $150, we got a more organized garage….that still can only hold one car, but at least that car is mine. ☺ This is not my truck, by the way – because as you all know, I drive a mini-van! The best price I found on this online was at www.Target.com, but the Hyloft storage shelves are available at Lowe’s (where I bought Jim’s) and probably Home Depot as well.

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Fly a “real” Flight Simulator! $25/hour to $299 and up

This would be a great gift for anyone who would love to test their “wings” but you want to keep safe. There are two places where I found this to be available. The first – www.fsfe.us (“Flight Simulators for Everyone” based in Southlake) – is more affordable, but only gives you the option of flying small planes or helicopters. Their prices seem very reasonable.

So, it might be a good test option to see if you want to go to the more expensive option of www.flyasim.com (“Fly-a-Sim” at DFW airport). Here you get to fly a real Boeing 7-something jet simulator, and was described by one dad I know as “an amazing experience.”

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Anything with your child’s own handprint, footprint, or drawing on it. Priceless.

And – saving the best for last – now that we have kids, every year for every gift-giving occasion, Jim and I give each other at least one item that was “created” by them. I imagine the novelty of this wears off over time (maybe?), but right now, these are my favorite gifts (and I hope his, too). The picture above was of my favorite gift from Jim for Mother’s Day. Jim bought washable poster paint and used it to get the boys to put their hand- and foot-prints on 4”x6” white cardstock. He then framed these prints, along with their pictures, in a collage wall frame that he bought at Target. Total cost was under $25, but it’s a gift I will treasure for a lifetime. (Jack appreciated it, too, because by measuring his foot – right at 6” – we determined he needed some new shoes!)

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Hope this gives you all some good ideas for Father’s Day!!!