Handmade Heaven: Handmade goodies for Father's Day

Celebrate fatherhood the handmade way

Aimee Brock
24 August 2010

If you ever sit there and worry about what to get your other half for Father’s Day – why not think of something handmade with cool, hip Dads in mind. There are plenty of amazingly-crafty gifts out there that you can give him to celebrate fatherhood; or you could surprise him with something he can make with his kids on the day. DIY ideas often make for the best and most memorable Father’s Days. Here’s a quick round up of ideas...

	Spoil him with a sleek and stylish hand-crafted ‘man bag’ just right for carrying around the weekend baby necessities: the Kipper Bag is a satchel made out of practically indestructible sailcloth. Part of a wider range of bags designed by a Wellington-based duo of friends, the Kipper is made of sailcloth constructed from materials including Kevlar (the material used in bullet-proof vests) and carbon fibre, and has a distinctive ‘weave’ like texture. It also boasts a washable change mat, adjustable straps, and handy elastic and mesh pockets for keeping baby bottles upright. AQ also sell other manly bags, including the Whaler and Mantra, which would be perfect work or laptop bags.
	Surprise him with a little reminder of his family he can carry around discretely. Smallprints’ staff take prints of your children’s fingerprint swirls, hand or foot prints or copies of their handwriting, and stamp them onto hand-crafted silver accessories like cufflinks, keychains or dog tags. Well-worth their weight in (silver), if these little heirlooms are a little out of your price range, an alternative is to look up designers who can do silver-stamping on Etsy.com, and can add your children’s names in a stylized font onto a charm or a dog tag.
	Make him proud to carry around his newborn by getting your baby an “I [heart] Dad” appliquéd t-shirt from Topography. Available online in a range of sizes and colours from 3-12 months, each appliqué is hand-made to order and comes in a cute gift box.
	Tempt his sweet tooth with a special bag of Father’s Day cookies decorated for him by his own kiddies. The new Delish Cupcakes/Little Cookies joint store in Auckland is offering drop-in cookie decorating lessons the day before Father’s Day. Kirrin, the resident Little Cookies expert, can help your children ice cookies shaped like ties, jet plans, rocketships and hammers, while you sit back and relax with your coffee and decadent Delish cupcake.
	Get him creating with his kids with a Seedling ‘DIY’ pack and take him back to his own childhood past-times. I love the idea of Dad helping the kids to make a wooden beach treasure box, glider or rocket and then getting outside to fly them or fill the box up with little things they’ve collected together.
	If you can’t get him outside playing with the kids, why not give him a Witchet DIY Pizza Pack and let him go carte-blanche in the kitchen in the afternoon with the kids and any toppings they want for dinner. The Witchet Pizza Pack comes in a hand-made fabric bag with tried and true recipes, a wooden spoon, a New Zealand-made black iron pizza pan, and a beautiful hand-crafted recycled Kauri rolling pin made especially for Witchet for use with little (and big) hands.
	Finally, wrap his presents all up with your own personalized wrapping paper and cards. Either get your children to decorate some plain newsprint paper with their paints, or dip their lego into washable acrylics to create lego-themed wrapping paper. Visit Snapfish for some basic card templates you can use to load your own photos onto to make a Father’s Day card, or create your own with your children’s drawings and glitter.

Maddie from the wonderful children’s design blog Lil Magoolie has has also scoured the internet for the best Father’s Day DIY projects recently and I particularly love her ‘tie and shirt’ Father’s Day cards or book marks. Maddie’s got other cool DIY Father’s Day projects too.

Enjoy!

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About the author:
Aimee Brock is a life-long admirer of handmade crafts and gifts, and recently started her own handmade children’s label, lily pad designs.