31 Days of Handmade Christmas Gifts: Day 11 - Seasonal Blocks

Today's Handmade Christmas Gift is all over the Internet, in fact, one of the places I got the idea from is Brown Paper Packages.  I'll share here, what I did to make this project.  Aside from waiting for things to dry between steps, it really took less than an hour from start to finish.

I had the blocks on hand - they are 1 1/4 inch big.  I got them at Hobby Lobby last year for a project, but never did it.  I painted them linen color from Folk Art Acrylic paint.  This will be the most difficult thing to do - pick the colors out for your project.  I wanted the blocks to be in the white family, but yet, not to blend in with my shelf in my bathroom.  (And yes, I'll probably make a few more of these for gifts for Christmas - but for now, Merry Christmas to me!)  You will need 7 blocks - you could do just about any size block - I even saw some blogs show to get a 4" post and cutting them into 4" sections.  I like my little ones though.

Here they are, all painted linen.  It was hard to wait until it was dry to do the other  sides where I was holding the block, so I ended up with really painted fingers!  My advice: just wait for it to dry all the way!

The next thing that I did was dry brush the edges of the blocks with a brown acrylic.  To dry brush, place a small amount brown paint on a paper plate.  Dip just the tip of a dry brush in and then tap on a clean place of the plate until there is barely any paint coming off the brush.  Then sweep the brush along the edges until it looks the way you like it.

Cut out brown scrapbook paper letters on the Cricut. I used the Zoo Day cartridge to make this font.  The entire font is in capitals, so you don't have to shift them.  I made them 1" tall.  Here are the letters I used:

1. H, Y, E, D
2. A, C, R, S
3. R, P, E, T
4. V, N, L, O
5. E, O, M, D
6. S, M, K, I
7. T, F, B, W

Brush a coat of Mod Podge on each face of the block and put the letter on.  Dry completely.

Coat the entire block with Mod Podge on all sides.  I put them to dry on a piece of wax paper, instead of the newspaper, so that it doesn't pick up the paper.

Aren't they great in my bathroom on the shelf above all the towels?  There are so many words that this can spell, besides Harvest.  They are:

• Harvest
• Welcome
• Friends
• Faith
• Family
• Spooky
• Winter
• Freedom
• Blessed
• Snow
• Home
• Hope
• Monster
• Mother
• Dream
• Easter

I plan to print up a card with all the words that the blocks can spell so that the person that receives it, will know what it can spell.

Check out those blogs I link up to in the right column!