Gifts for Dad

This Father’s Day, give the father in your life a personalized gift that is sweet and useful.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom: StampedbyShaye, GunmetalGems, Namedrops, RowHouse14, wearthou, Stampressions

We’ve seen this trending all over Etsy recently: leather key chain fobs with cute phrases. Our favorite phrases include, “Thanks for the good looks,” and, “World’s Best Dad,” with an established date! We chose to improve it from a simple fob to a leather snap to snap keys onto a belt buckle. Here are some brief instructions on how to assemble a unique gift like this.

Supplies

• Hammer 2lb Brass Stamping Hammer pictured
• SnapSetter with snap sets
• Pen or sharpie
• Metal Hole Punch Pliers Buy Online!
• Leather Punch
• Bench Block
• Wide leather strip
• Stamping blanks Buy Online!
• TierraCast Rivets Buy Online!
• Not Pictured: Stamp set

Reminder: Everything pictured is featured in store for your convenience (except the pen, of course), call us to see what we have in stock!

We began with a leather cuff that already had a set of snaps. We want the snaps facing a different direction, so we cut off the snaps on both sides and traced it to maintain a rounded end. Finding the placement of the snaps was the hardest part – so we made a light trace of the snaps on both sides and set them according to the SnapSetter directions.

We used dog tags for our blanks and stamped, “World’s Best Dad,” and the names of the children. If you have never stamped before, read our Stamping 101 and become a pro!

Once stamped, we needed a second hole on each dog tag for riveting. We placed one blank on top of the other and traced the hole, for both blanks. The hole for the rivet needs to be about 2mm in diameter, but we only had a 1.8mm metal punch on hand. If you don’t have a large enough punch, ream it larger or carefully punch multiple times to widen the hole.

Place the blanks on the leather where you want them, trace the holes, and use the leather punch on the 2mm setting to punch the holes. Grab 4 sets of male and female rivets; the shorter female end goes on the top and the longer male end on the bottom. Hammer and find the perfect packaging for your Father’s Day gift.

Riveting can be complicated; if you need some guidance sign up for our Intro to Snaps and Rivets class for a hands-on introduction.

To add more flare, use the TierraCast Snap Caps to liven up the snap ends.

Tip: If your rivets don’t cover the holes in the blanks entirely, use a TierraCast 7mm Nugget Spacer with a 2mm hole on top of the blank to hide the areas that are showing!