Love Bird Card for Father's Day

I love making homemade cards, and this is one of my favorites that I learned back in the day when I ran a day care.  If you can get your little one to sit still long enough, you can turn their tiny hand prints into love birds!  

This card will get tucked away in a special place and for years to come Juniper's daddy can look back and marvel at how tiny her hands once were.

I used high contrast black and white for this card, but you could get really playful with it and turn the hand prints into little chickens in a colorful world...or a family of birds in the grass using all your children's hands...or even smooching birds for Valentine's Day!

I had a heck of a time getting Juniper's hand in place for a photo so Sophie stepped in to show you how it's done.  It's easy!  Just trace the hand and fill in the bottom wrist part with a curved line.  I prefer to trace both hands separately versus copying one because each hand has its own character.  I cut Junie's hand prints out of white card stock and used black and white chalk pencils for the eyes and legs.  The heart is cut out of tinfoil that I scrunched up and smoothed out again.

For the inside of the card, I manipulated a photo using PicMonkey, a process which I describe in this Accordion Picture Card post.  I found the idea for the lettering after googling the terms "fun Father's Day font."  I did mine freehand, which is why it's a little crooked (which is fine for us, because we are little crooked) but you could use a ruler to make it neater.  And don't forget to include the year in there somewhere, or on the back of the card!  You think you'll remember every detail forever, but you won't.  There are just too many beautiful moments to keep it all straight!  That's why we love documenting them in special ways.

Happy Father's Day Steve! And Happy Father's Day to you all!

Accordion Picture Card

Open this sweet little wallet-sized card and you'll find an accordion full of fun portraits. This is a gift that will make someone you love very happy!

My girls and I had fun taking candid studio-style shots of each other in black and white. I used my favorite free photo doctoring site- PicMonkey - to intensify the color contrast and create some variation in the photos. After printing the photos onto matte photo paper, I glued them to one long piece of inexpensive brown shipping paper. Fold it up, create your cover, use a little red ribbon for a shot of color and the photo card is so pretty on its own you won't even have to wrap it!

Be sure to leave ample extra paper on both ends so you can figure out a good way to create a cover. It's best to create your cover after you fold your accordion to assure it ends cover up versus photo up.

The little word grid below was handwritten onto a piece of graph paper that I found in a decorative paper book.

front cover

back page

You can make your accordion as long or as short as you like! We used 15 photos total and when all stacked up the whole thing was thinner than a sugar wafer. But way more sweet! Steve loved it.

Notes:

Sit in front of a lightly colored plain wall for your photo shoot. Try using the "continuous" setting on your camera if it has one.

When using PicMonkey, upload your photos one at a time and go into the "exposure" setting. Adjust the contrast, highlights and shadows until you get the look you want. Explore all their other options, too! It's an amazing resource for all sorts of fun photo projects!

For your photo strip you can use any paper that's about the weight of wrapping paper. Unroll the paper onto a long table and glue the photos along an edge leaving space between each photo to accommodate the fold. Trim neatly to remove the photo strip from the large paper, leaving 2 or 3 photo-lengths of paper on each end. Fold up and plan for your front and back to end in paper with a cover instead of a photo.

Cut an extra long piece of thin ribbon and glue it to the very center of your back cover using a tiny drop of hot glue. Tie your bow, then trim your ribbon to the desired length.

Try making one for the man in your life! Maybe he will shed a little happy tear like mine did.

We love you Steve!