Father's Day DIY

Since this might become a craft-y blog, I wanted to try my hand at a tutorial! Yay! And for once, this is an idea of my own, not even inspired by any other idea I saw. Instead of using someone else's tutorial, as I so often do, I had pored through Father's Day's gifts and just couldn't come up with something for my dad. He's almost impossible to shop for anyways, but I wanted to do something special for him this year. I had made my mom pearl earrings for Mother's Day (I love pearls and when I saw them online, I just thought they'd look beautiful on her) and I didn't just want to buy something for Dad this year. The plan was also to make a card because every card I read was "funny," but not actually funny, and a little insulting too. I decided  making a card would be better. However, that didn't quite happen. Sorry for the lack of step-by-step pictures, I was focused on finishing it, not on making a tutorial.

We celebrated Father's Day a week late because we were going to visit the next week. This gave me a little extra time to work on it. I bought a few sheets of nice scrapbook paper, 12x12, in our favourite colours: blue and gray. I bought a little too much: 6 pages of gray and 2 sheets each of 3 different blues (light blue, dark blue and a teal-ish blue). I spent a few hours measuring out 1 inch strips onto each page with a pencil. On each strip, I used a corresponding sharpie colour to write down a memory I had of my dad, or of my dad and I. Most of them were little things from my childhood, although a lot of them involved the interesting food we experimented with. Some examples:

-Playing space invaders on the way home from German School

-Playing Slug Bug in the car with our unique point-scoring system and rewards

-Melted cheese plate with A1 sauce

-Finding milk duds in my salad, or grapes in my sandwich

-You singing "Zoom ditty dit da" while drying my hair after my baths

-Getting lost on our mystery trip bike rides, asking for directions and finding out our apartment was right down the block

Those are just a few of the memories that I wrote on those strips. I filled up almost one page of each colour, taking turns writing on the colours so there would be approximately an even number of each. Then I carefully cut the sheets up into the strips (I really wished I'd had a paper cutter for this). I used a pair of needlepoint pliers to grab the end of each strip and wrap it up into a spiral. I pulled out the needlepoint pliers shortly after beginning to wrap in order to shape it into a circle. It's kinda like quilling, which is amazing, but I didn't have the proper quilling tools, so I had to just make do. I wasn't sure the spirals would stay all wound up, but luckily they held their shape pretty well. (By the way, I totally wish I could actually quill--it's SO COOL!) I used a mason jar from the craft store to hold all the memories. It ended up being about 3/4 full, which was perfect. I still have strips left, and we can both continue to add memories in the future. He can pull out a spiral, and read a memory, and see what things I remember most about him and our relationship. It's definitely a cheesy gift, but I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I think my dad liked it a lot too. And sometimes, it's not the big, flashy gifts that make an impact, but the little ones that have thought and effort put into them. 

So here's a picture of my Father's Day gift to my dad. If you want to use the "tutorial" and make your own , please do so. I've included a picture and I'd love to hear about it if you decide to make one! It's very versatile and would work with almost any relationship. It might be fun to do as a couple too. Use your favourite colours and throughout the year, write down memories that make you smile on your colour and put them in. Then on New Year's Eve, you can pull out each others' and read them! (Or something like that)
Happy Crafting!

Spirals and pretty colours!