This Father's Day gift has a special ingredient - pictures of you!

Father's Day is kind of bittersweet for me. On the sweet side, I love to help my daughter's make gifts and plans to celebrate their father. On the bitter side, I feel such a deep loss. My father died a year and a half ago and there are many days when it still hasn't sunk in. Last Father's Day I had a sudden moment of panic that I'd forgotten to send Dad a gift!

On June 15^th don't forget to give your dad some extra attention. This week's craft will help you do just that. It's a small gift, but one I think dads will love because it contains a very special ingredient — photos of you.

By making your father a photo key tag, he'll be able to look at your smiling face whenever he's away from home. Better still, he'll always have pictures of his children on hand to show off and brag about.

What you need

• Children's photographs
• Card stock (thin cardboard)
• Scrapbooking paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Photo laminating sheets
• Quality hole punch
• Key ring

Pictures of me Father's Day key tag
With this project you can put your scrapbooking skills to good use. That said, you don't need to be a paper whiz to make this. This laminated photo key tag can be as simple as laminating two pictures or you can make backgrounds or frames using patterned papers. Have fun adding wording, stickers and more.

Step one: Look for two photographs (more if you'd like to make a mini album key tag) of Dad's favourite kids. You don't want the key tag to be very big, so choose photos where the people are small but still visible.

Step two: You'll save time by making two templates - one for the background and one for the photo. Cut thin cardboard into a small rectangle shape (mine measured about 2¼ inches by 2½ inches) for the background. Make a slightly smaller template for the photo (1¾ by 2¼ inches). Cut out your templates.

Step three: Set your background template onto the wrong side of a sheet of scrapbooking paper. Trace around the template and cut out. Repeat. You'll need two backgrounds for each laminated key tag. Position the photo template onto the photo, making sure you capture the best part of the image (don't cut anyone out!). Trace around with a pencil and cut out the photo. If you don't want to cut up photos, make a coloured copy first. Repeat. (For fun, we chose a more serious photo for the front and a silly picture for the back. Have fun with this.)

Step four: Arrange the photo onto the background. Add stickers or cut out wording if you like. Just remember not to layer too much or it won't laminate well. When you're happy with your layout, use a glue stick to put it all together. Repeat for the second photo. Glue the two mounted photos together so that you see one photo on the front and another on the back. Trim if necessary.

Step five: Follow directions given on your photo laminating sheets (found at office supplies/photography/department stores) to laminate. Once laminated, cut around the photo, leaving a small border (a little less than a ¼ of an inch). Round the edges so Dad doesn't get cut.

Step six: Near one corner (not too close to the edge), use a hole punch to make a hole through the plastic. With a quality hole punch this shouldn't be hard to do. (If you're a scrapbooking guru, you've probably got eyelets around the house. One of these would be great to cover the punched hole.) Attach a key ring.

As a variation, decorate and laminate a bunch of photos to make dad a mini album key tag. Grandparents would love these, too!