Photo Gift Idea For Dad...

Hey Everyone!!

I am so excited to be writing this post from the Haven Conference!!!

For those of you who don't know, Haven is a blog conference specializing in DIY & Home Decor! I purchased my ticket last fall (I think) and have been looking forward to it ever since!! So, far the sessions have been AMAZING & I have met so many of the women who have been inspiring me since starting this blog just a year & a half ago! In addition to them, I have also made new friends & discovered new blogs since being here....the whole experience has been so, so AWESOME!!

I will share some pictures from the conference & do a little recap for ya'll some time next week, but until then, I wanted to share with you a project I completed for my hubby for Father's Day last weekend!

 Didn't it turn out so cute?!

 Ideally, I would have like to share it with you prior to Father's Day to give you a gift idea, but because my hubby reads this blog, I knew that wasn't an option! So, I hope that you will bookmark it for next Father's Day or maybe even keep it in mind for another occasion (i.e. birthday, Christmas, etc.)

First, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased letters like this one....

They are normally, $1.99, but I bought them that day for 50% off. I purchased three letters.....D, A, & Y. Then I brought the letters home & and gave them a few coats of Krylon's Dover White Spray paint.

Once the letters were dry, I loaded the kids up in the car & we went to the park for a little photo shoot! 

This is one of the SOOC (straight out of the camera) pictures from the shoot....

I uploaded it into PicMonkey for editing & converted it to black & white.

I did this for all of the images & then ordered 4x6 prints from Walmart's one-hour photo. All five prints cost me just a dollar & some change! When I went to pick the pictures up, I also picked up these frames at Walmart for 97 cents a piece...

I liked these frames for two reasons....#1) They were cheap, and #2) Because they were thin frames, I was able to place the pictures side-by-side to spelled out the word "Daddy."

I just popped each picture into a frame & then had to come up with a solution for displaying them together...

My first thought was to mount the frames onto a piece of wood, so that they could be hung on the wall, but after discussing the idea with my dad, we thought it might be easier to make stand to display them on.  We used some scrap wood (a 1x2 and a 1x3) to create the stand. The wood pieces were just cut to match the width of the frames & then screwed together using a drill.

 We also took some sandpaper to each end of the stand to make the edges smooth.

Then I just used some black craft paint & gave the stand a couple good coats....

I finished it off by giving it a couple coats of Krylon Triple Thick Clear Glaze to keep the paint from chipping or scratching off. 

 When the glaze was dry, the project was complete!!

 I displayed my pictures on the stand & the boy's gave it to their Daddy on Father's Day morning! 

To state that Daddy LOVED it, would be an UNDERSTATEMENT!!

I think this was BY FAR, his most favorite gift to date!!

What gift did you make or buy for your hubby/Dad for Father's Day this year?!

Got an idea that I need to see?! 

Leave them in the comments section of this post! 

I'd LOVE to check it out!!