Recipe Cards

• 1). Write down practical recipes on cards. These could be anything from macaroni and cheese to how to successfully boil water.
  
  
• 2). Put some of your child's favorite dishes on the cards as well.
  
  
• 3). Place all of the cards into a recipe box and inform the teen that these are the dishes you have been making your children since childhood.
  
  
• 4). Give the teen some of the ingredients necessary to make the foods or a microwave to cook them in. As an added joke, stick a gift card to a chain fast-food restaurant in with the cards just in case the teen cannot successfully execute any of the recipes.
  
  

Picture Frame

• 1). Cut four pieces of cardboard into 2-by-2-inch squares using a utility knife.
  
  
• 2). Cut pieces of brightly colored material that are slightly larger than the cardboard squares. Attach the material to one side of the cardboard so it slightly overlaps the edge of the cardboard. Use hot glue to attach the material.
  
  
• 3). Cut pictures of the teen's friends to fit the cardboard squares. Attach the photos to the uncovered side of the cardboard with hot glue.
  
  
• 4). Place a piece of ribbon vertically onto a flat surface and hot glue the pictures to the ribbon, beginning about 2 inches from the top. The pictures should have a 1-inch gap between them.
  
  
• 5). Hang the pictures on your teens' wall as a surprise.