Present for Father’s day

And it is once again time for Father’s Day. In our family Father’s Day is twice a year. This is a little odd but let me explain: I am having two nationalities, one from my father and one from my mother. In Finland Father’s Day is celebrated in November and in Germany in spring. As I live in Finland and my father in Germany I think a great dad like him can be celebrated twice a year. Which means that I can blog twice a year about my Father’s Day present and thus twice the ideas for you.

My father loves to receive handmade presents or something with photographs. Mostly I have made him something with photographs: albums, a clock in which I put photographs and so on.

This year I got the idea of making some coasters. Not my best notions, but handmade at least.

I had some round plastic coasters from Aarrikka for some reason and I decided to use them as basis for the coasters. Then I printed eight detailed map parts out from Google view, always zooming in to a special place: the neighborhood where my parents live, where I live, the place of our cottage, the city where my sister lives, and so on.

Then I printed the maps out, put the plastic coaster onto the map on the right spot, draw with a pen around the coaster to mark the edges and then it was very easy to cut the circles out. After some circle I realized that I am just so bad in cutting out circles! Luckily I love to make cards and had a circle cutter. But, I failed at that task too and did not always choose the right center, leaving a lovely blue circle line on the map where the pen had drawn the line. But, at least it is a handmade present.

In the end I brushed decoupage gloss onto the plastic coaster, put the map onto it and then brushed some more decoupage gloss onto the map. Luckily I brushed carefully so that I did not break the paper. The gloss makes the paper wet, so be sure to only brush very few times over the same spot. Be careful especially to let the map dry well after printing.

After the night the coasters were ready to be sent just in time for Father’s Day.

 

Not the most beautiful of maps that I chose, but luckily the idea was good to delight my father 🙂 Hoping for better ideas for Christmas.

 

Father’s Day present: reading sign and .. a card

It is not that I have not done anything in the last time, it is just hard when you cannot show it. My parents are eagerly following my blog and so after forbidding my mom to have a look at the blog because of the necklace, as fate wanted: Father’s Day came before they came to visit me to collect their presents. Father’s Day? Some of you are puzzled and afraid that they have forgotten? It was in Germany at least, so when you are not from there, you might still have some time to make something beautiful.

So, I needed a present for my dad and was searching for good ideas in Pinterest. Then I found a picture of some reading signs that someone made as a Father’s Day present. My own signs then were completely different, but the idea was great, because my father is just about to retire and told me that he has begun to read more.

After that it was of course time to make a card, too. After some time I decided to make a quite simple one, including a picture of me and my sister, because my father loves presents that include a picture.