When my sisters and I were trying to figure out what to buy our Dad for Father’s Day we really had to rack our brains to think of something! I mean, he rarely wants or needs anything. Don’t get me wrong, he seems happy with whatever we give him, but we always want to give him something that would be truly special, ya know? So we bought him a small patio set. Bet you didn’t expect that! Well we did cuz he really wanted one, but my sweet sister Darrla also came up with the idea of a memory box. The idea was, that we would all – kids, grandkids, and foster kids, ( yes, he is 72 and has six foster children living with him, the man is truly a saint! ) write down our favorite memories with Dad and put them in a box for him to read. So today I am going to share with you the Father’s Day memory box that we came up with.
The Hubs has a business called Roxx Boxes. He builds beautiful boxes so we asked him to build us our Father’s day memory box. Unfortunately, cleaning out the garage and an uncooperative tool box resulted in a shoulder injury that has sidelined him from doing a whole lot of anything.
Plan B. A few years ago I bought a big box of cigar boxes for crafts and I had a few left. I started with one of those.
I painted it black, distressed it a little and finished with a coat of spray poly. I wanted a masculine look and I think this works really well.
Now the fun begins! I wanted to hide the cigar label on the inside of the box, so using scrapbook paper, I lined both the bottom and top of the inside of the box. Then using pictures of my Dad with me and with my sisters, I decorated the top inside lid of the box. (He really is the ‘best dad ever!”) I wanted to keep this simple since the main focus will be the handwritten notes that we put in the box, but really you are only limited to how you decorate it by your imagination.
Here is a close up… after I already had it decorated I realized that I could have taken my sister Darrla’s photo and converted it into a black and white for a more cohesive look. The more I thought of it though, she is ten years younger than my sister Terri and I are. When Terri and I were younger black and whites were the bomb. No color to be had. Ten years later… it was all color, all of the time! So I am good with the pictures representing the sign of the times.
The hardest part of this Father’s Day memory box was deciding which of my many wonderful memories with my Dad to choose to write about. All it takes is a box, a little creativity and a lot of love!
Happy Father’s Day!
Until next time…..