Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop - Father's Day

Welcome to the Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop for the month of June. This month's theme is either Picnic or Father's Day. My project is a Father's Day picnic.

I've been spending a lot of time at race tracks lately so I decided to design a race-themed picnic which works well as a Father's Day picnic. I began by rethinking the typical picnic basket and used a toolbox {new and clean} instead. I filled it with all kinds of picnic goodies.

Celebrating All Kinds Of Fathers

Fathers have all kinds of interests and hobbies. I wanted to find a way to celebrate all of the interests a father might have. Everything used has been either thrifted or repurposed for this project.

I started this project with bottle caps that I painted white. I used Rust-oleum paint so that it would adhere to both the metal and plastic inside the bottle caps.

While these were drying, I painted a wooden 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" frame with acrylic paint and sanded the edges once it was dry. Because the bottle caps would be white, I chose a dark piece of scrapbooking paper for the background. I trimmed it to size and placed it behind the glass and assembled the frame.

When the bottle caps were dry, I glued these directly onto the front of the glass.

The fun part was gathering little icons of things that reminded me of my father. The star represents both his military career as well as the fact that he was the guiding star in my life. He was also a DIY kind of guy as well as a car guy. He enjoyed gardening and taught me to enjoy the outdoors.

This project made me stop and think about the many interests that my father had. Go For Broke Dad!

Honored to be featured at:

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, All Thingz Related, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blue  Cricket Designs, Chic on a Shoestring,  FaveCrafts, Homemaker on a Dime, I {heart} Naptime,  I'm Topsy Turvy, It's a Very Cherry World, Inspiring Creations, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing, Singing Three Little Birds, Someday Crafts,  Somewhat Simple, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sunburnt Cow, Tatertots and Jello, The 4Rs, The 36th Avenue,  The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Thrifty Home, Trendy Treehouse, Truly Lovely,  Type A, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Vintage Wanna Bee and What Allie's Making Now

Father's Day Gift Idea

I have seen a lot of fantastic projects using free hardware store paint sample swatches. I finally thought of a project that I wanted to create using these freebies.

At work I see people who have their children's artwork pinned up on their walls. I thought it would be a cute idea to create some way that a parent could highlight their child's art on a rotating basis without putting holes in the artwork.

I created this using a thrifted clipboard and free paint swatches. I chose the colors to have a faded, beach theme.

The clipboard is roughly 9" x 12 1/2" so I first trimmed 23 paint swatches into 2 1/4" squares. Next, I cut each square into rectangles that were 3/4" x 2 1/4".

I arranged the strips in a pattern on the clipboard until I was happy with the color combinations.

I adhered them with Mod Podge. I had to add an additional row along the top and cut two little angle pieces around the clip to cover the board.

With three additional paint swatches, I die cut the word "DAD" and adhered them with Mod Podge as well.

I created this in honor of Father's Day but you can add any name or leave it blank. This could hang on a wall and new children's artwork could be easily added.

I'm honored to be featured at:

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, All Thingz Related, Be Different Act Normal, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blue Cricket Designs, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, Coastal Charm, Designer Garden, FaveCrafts, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, Homemaker on a Dime, Inspiring Creations, Just a Girl, Keeping It Simple, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Sew Can Do, Simply Designing, Singing Three Little Birds, Skip to my Lou, Someday Crafts, Somewhat Simple, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Sunburnt Cow, Tatertots & Jello, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The Girl Creative, The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Thirty Sixth Avenue, The Trendy Treehouse, Truly Lovely, Type A and What Allie's Making Now