DIY Gift For Dad

Hi, everyone I hope you had an amazing memorial day weekend. Today I’m sharing a DIY father’s day gift but before I start I wanted to share what we’ve been up to.

We went out fishing caught some fresh dinner and had a blast! How did you spend your weekend?

I am so excited to share this DIY Father’s day gift with you today! Since this gift was made for our favorite DAD in the world ( my hubby) Oleg our little guy will be joining me to show you how he made this gift for dad. With some help from me when needed 😁.

I came across this idea while surfing the web for father’s day ideas and I stumbled on a printable on made by Marcia @alwaysprintables. She is amazing!  Her photoshop skills are exquisite and she’s really talented! Etsy has a dozen of similar printables to pick from if you’re looking to get one printed. Marcia’s  at alwaysprintables stood out the most to me. I simply searched dad printable on etsy and it gave me so many choices between fonts and layouts for the photo shopped dad letters. The DIY gift possibilities are endless!

I really loved the idea of bringing meaning to the words DADDY with memorable photos and a quote. The reason we decided to make a DIY instead of getting a printable is because we wanted something handmade and Oleg was really excited to make something for his DAD. That’s why we created this DIY father’s day gift!

Cost: Around $35

We had a lot of the supplies at home. The cost will really depend on how much supplies you have at home.

Time Needed:

This can take anywhere between 35 minutes to 2 hours to make. If you plan on making your own sign this will taking a little longer because of drying times.

Supplies:

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• 8×10 photo prints  ( you can also use multiple 5×7 prints it just takes longer to piece each letter together)
• mod podge
• brush
• Letter Printables  ( you can print them on a word document with a bold font) ( I also used gimp software to elongate my letter a little)
• scissors
• exacto knife

Supplies for wood sign if you’ll be making one :

( all your wood can be cut at home depot, you’ll only need to assemble it at home. No nails or screws needed just glue. )

• 1/4 thickness mdf board 12″x34″
• wood glue
• white spray paint
• dowels

Dimensions : 2 dowels at 34″ in length and 2 at 13 1/8 ” in length

Supplies for the quote:  ( transfer print version)

• mirror quote printable ( I used canva.com to do this )
• olive oil or express transfer
• pen
• sharpie

If you don’t have time to make your own sign here’s some picture frames I found on amazon. They’re the same size as our wood frame is.

Here’s a cute wood rustic sign that would be cute too. It’s not the same size our sign is though.

Making our wood sign for the DIY FATHER’s day GIFT!

Since we had the tools to cut it at home that’s what we did. We used our skill saw to cut the dowels and the mdf board to size.

Than I used some wood glue and attached the dowels to the mdf board.  I used bricks to help prop up the wood dowels will drying. I did not nail the dowels to the mdf board because the mdf board was so thin. Also the wood glue dried really really strong and nails weren’t needed.

Once the glue was dry I used some rustoleum spray paint and gave it a few coats of paint.

Choosing the RIGHT LETTERS for the DIY GIFT!!

Before starting this DIY father’s day gift we opened each photo we wanted to use on our computer and lay our letter printables on top to see if they would work with the photos.  We made sure each photo was about 8×10 when opened on the computer screen since that was the size the photos would be printed. The light from the computer screen lit through the letter printables perfectly to help us envision how each letter would look once printed and cut out.

Cutting out the letters!

To begin we cut each letter printable out and lay it on top of our printed photos.

Because it was hard to see through the letter we held both the photo and letter in front of the window to make sure we had the letter aligned perfectly before cutting.

Then we held the letter down and traced it with a marker.

I used some scissors to cut the outer edges of each letter and an exacto knife to cut the center of each letter out.

Adding our quote!

Adding a quote is totally optional. You can either write one free hand with a sharpie or if you want to make sure it’s neat you can do what we did.  The transfer print version.

First off I created a mirror printable of the quote we chose.  I used canva.com for this. Canva helps you create info graphics , pdfs and more. I love that website!

Instructions for creating mirror image printable on canva.com : 

1. I typed the quote up in a document on canva. You can pick any font they have. You’ll need to make this quote into a photo in order to flip it for the mirror effect.
2. To do so I downloaded it as a png ( png is an image file) .  To download pick png and download at the top right corner of the canva window.
3. Following that delete the text you have on the canva window and upload (upload options will be on the left) the png that you have downloaded to the computer.
4.  Now that you have a photo of your quote uploaded to the canva library drag and drop the image on your canva document and use the flip options to create the mirror effect.  You should see flip options at the top of the window towards the left. Flip horizontally will create the mirror effect.  Download it again and that’s it!  You’re ready to print.  Don’t overthink the process it’s as simple as making an image out of your quote and flipping it in canva.

Transferring our quote!

We started by cutting our printable out evenly and aligning it along the bottom of the board making sure the print is facing down.  You can use oil or express transfer and lightly apply some with a q-tip onto each letter.  A drop goes a long way!

Than use a plain pen to trace each letter. This helps the ink transfer.

Remove your printables and your letters should have transfers.  Than just use a sharpie to go over each letter and make it look bold.

Applying our DADDY letters!

Once our quote was done we cut out a black piece of paper to help guide us while we glued on the photo letters.  We applied mod podge on the back of each photo letter and gently applied it onto the board making sure the letters were all about the same distance apart and the same distance from the top with the help of our little paper. And that’s it! Isn’t this DIY father’s day gift super easy to make!

OTHER DIYS YOU’LL LOVE

• HAND PRINT FATHER’S DAY GIFT!
• MOTHER’S DAY STRING ART!
• GIFT IDEAS FOR YOUR FAVORITE TEACHER!
• STRING ART APPLE ( TEACHERS GIFT )
• DOLLAR STORE EASTER EGG CENTERPIECE!

Here’s a quick video DIY version!

Our completed Father’s Day Gift!

I love how it turned out! This DIY Father’s day gift was a hit! Tony Loved it!

That’s it for today! Thanks for tuning in! Happy Early Father’s day everyone! I hope this DIY father’s day gift inspired you to make one to! Go make your dad’s happy 🙂

Looking for more awesome DIYs check out my youtube channel here.

xo,

Lily-