Happy Father's Day!!!

It's hard to believe that this is the 4th year that I haven't been able to call my dad and wish him happy Father's day. So I said it out loud this morning, so wherever he is up there, I know he could hear me. I miss you and love you tons, dad.

Ever since I was little though, my grandpa has been an important father-figure in my life and I am very grateful for everything that he has done for me. I've been a papa's girl from day one and still am.

Because of the role he has forever played in my life, I make him a card every year. But, each year, he expects something cooler. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to beat this one though because it's actually popping out. The whole card. I made it look like a fish basket on the outside by folding a paper bag and hot gluing twine in a weaved fashion. The twine isn't in straight lines though, making it look old, which is what I wanted. Then, I used a paper bag handle for the handle and sewed a brown button on the front for it to close. I took a piece of straw rope the hubby made and used that as the loop that slips over the button to hold it closed. :)

Yep, that's the outside.

For the inside, I put white card stock down for the base. Then, I glued more twine on by the parts that flap over. I colored white paper with a bunch of different green crayons and cut it into strips to make it look like grass. (My grandpa usually throws grass in the basket so the fish doesn't get the basket as slimy). After placing the grass, I used sticky glue dots to attach him. :) I wrote Happy Father's Day and signed it. :)

For the fish himself, I took a coffee filter and opened it up over a plate. Then, I mixed green and blue food coloring into water and used a dropper to drop the dye onto the coffee filter. I used the blue-green around the edges. Then, I made some light pink food coloring water and dropped that toward the middle (so that the fish has pink spots on its belly). I let it dry. Then, once it was dry, I stuffed it with a piece of paper towel. I scrunched up one end to make the tail fin. I used a part of another coffee filter for the top and bottom fins. Then, I took blue and teal nail polish and made scale-like dots on the top and middle of the fish, and the fins. Then, I cut up gold paper and made the gold scales above the belly. The eye is a pearl button that I made the black spot on. That's glued on there as well. :)

Here's the little guy. :) He has all of his fins in this picture, plus if you look close enough, you'll see gills. :) 

Happy Father's Day, Papa!