Introduction: Make a Lego Diorama Father's Day Card

About: I love the design and ambition of vintage technology, and the usability and potential of new - my passion is bringing the two together.

My Dad is fantastic, but he does hate cats getting in his garden - so I thought this year's Father's Day card should show him getting his own back on his furry nemesis. I recreated his garden in Lego with an appropriate scene and photographed it to make the card.

Step 1: Subject Matter

I love this pic of Dad and I in his garden a few years back, so it was the ideal view to recreate in Lego. In the pic Dad is squirting a hose down a mouse hole, the garden's zero-tolerance policy extending to mice as well as cats.

It was a bit of a rush (have to post it in the morning!) so the Lego version captures the essence rather than being a perfect scale model - the kids identified it straightaway though which was good enough for me!

You could choose any scene to recreate - this one was quite small and quick to build thanks to the amount of Lego lying around our house - though ironically I spent 15 minutes rummaging around for the "Father Figure".

Step 2: Building and Snapping

The model took an hour or so to build, then I photographed it using a tripod for stability. If I'd had longer I would probably have lit it better but it came out OK. I cropped, resized and added a caption in a photo editor, printed it to photo paper and glued it to a blank card.

Step 3: In the Post

It'll be on its way to Dad in the morning and should raise a smile. He taught me so much about the joy of fixing and building stuff, I wouldn't be writing instructables otherwise!