Father’s Day doesn’t land on the same day everywhere.
Germany’s is Ascension Day in May, a Thursday. Switzerland’s is the first Sunday of June. Austria’s Vatertag is the second Sunday of June. France’s Fête des Pères is the third Sunday, a week after Austria’s.
If you’re in Austria or France and thinking about a book of your kid’s drawings, the good news is the timeline isn’t complicated. Here’s what it actually looks like.
How far ahead to order
A printed book isn’t an overnight thing, but it isn’t slow either. Order about two weeks before the day and you’re comfortable.
Standard production for a Scribbly book takes two to three business days, and shipping within the EU runs five to seven days after that. Two weeks out covers both with room to spare. Inside of one week you’re depending on everything going perfectly, which sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
Because France’s Fête des Pères comes a week after Austria’s Vatertag, the French window is simply a week longer. Same math, more breathing room.
What you need before you open the app: six to twelve drawings, photographed. If your kid draws regularly, you almost certainly have these scattered through your camera roll. The drawing they brought home from Kindergarten last week. The family portrait from February. The thing they made that neither of you can identify but both agree is good.
If the photos exist, assembly takes about 20 minutes. Upload, let background removal handle the kitchen table, arrange the pages, order. The thing that takes longest is usually deciding on the sequence.
Use the extra time to choose well
If you’ve got the two weeks, there’s no scramble, and that’s worth using.
A Father’s Day book lands better when it has a point of view. Not every drawing in the folder, but the pieces that capture who your kid is right now. The five-year-old who draws everyone with specific hairdos. The three-year-old whose people are circles with legs.
Take the time. It shows.
The step people don’t expect to matter
Background removal.
A drawing photographed on the kitchen table still reads as a photo taken on a kitchen table. The same drawing with the background stripped reads as art, because that’s what it is. The difference is visible even in a small book format and it’s the thing that separates a book from a photo album.
Scribbly removes backgrounds automatically when you upload a photo. You photograph the drawing, upload the image, and the app produces a clean version of the artwork on white. From there you arrange the pages and order. The tedious part, manually isolating the drawing from whatever was underneath it, doesn’t exist.
For more on photographing drawings in a way that actually works, see How to Photograph Kids’ Art (Without the Kitchen Table).
If you’ve left it late
If the day is only a few days out and you haven’t started, a printed book probably won’t make it. Two things still work.
A single large print. Pick the one drawing that most captures your kid right now. Print it large and frame it. Ships faster than a book, easier decision, and some dads prefer one right thing over twenty.
The phone album. Create a folder, add twenty drawings in chronological order, hand over the phone on the day. The progression from scribble to recognizable human is what makes this work, not the packaging.
What dads actually do with the books
Not what you’d expect.
The book doesn’t usually stay on the coffee table. It ends up somewhere more personal: a shelf in the home office, the nightstand, the glove compartment of the car. Sometimes it migrates to a desk at work, which is how three different colleagues have ended up explaining a photo book of their kid’s drawings to people they barely know.
The reaction on the day is rarely the thing that sticks. What sticks is the book being there six months later.
FAQ
How far ahead should I order a printed book for Father’s Day?
About two weeks. Production takes two to three business days and standard shipping within the EU runs five to seven days. Ordering two weeks out gives you a buffer; cutting it closer means depending on nothing going slightly wrong.
Do I need a lot of drawings?
Six drawings is enough for a small book. Eight to twelve is comfortable. You’re not trying to document the whole year, just the best pieces from what exists.
My kid is very young and mostly makes scribbles. Does that work?
Yes, particularly those. Scribbles on a clean white background look deliberate. Background removal helps because it removes the kitchen-table context that makes casual work look casual. What’s left is just what was drawn.
When is Father’s Day in Austria and France?
Austria’s Vatertag falls on the second Sunday of June. France’s Fête des Pères falls on the third Sunday of June, a week later. Germany’s is Ascension Day in May, and Switzerland’s is the first Sunday of June.
