THIS idea was one I saw on Pinterest while looking for ideas for the diaper cake in my previous blog entry. It’s for the same momma but this was a gift from me. I knew she was having a girl and I knew she was doing baby’s room in a feminine, jungle theme. Again, I shopped several different stores over a matter of months and this little beauty is what I came up with.
I had no idea what direction I was going with this when the idea struck me. This was the picture that I saw on Pinterest (I have no rights....it belongs to bitsyblocks)
I love these blocks and this idea so much you guys!!! But I wanted to make it match her theme so I knew I had some brainstorming to do! I was at Target one day and saw the cutest 3-block set. They were made to display the days/weeks/months/years of a baby's life. You could flip/arrange the top two blocks to the desired numbers and the bottom one you could flip between days/weeks/months/years. I knew I was going to paint them because it was unfinished wood. But the rest I was just going to have to figure out as I shopped! I found a lot of what I needed at Hobby Lobby but also shopped Michael's, Joanne Fabrics, Dollar Tree and Walmart. (You may recognize some of these things from the previous blog as they were used for both the Baby-Q diaper cake and this block craft). Here's most of my haul:
You can see the blocks they way I bought them, above. I was determined to make this into something incredible and I don't think I missed the mark! I sanded down the blocks so that when I painted over them you wouldn't be able to see the numbers/letters. I knew that was going to be tough and boy was I right! I didn't have the right kind of sand paper. And what I think I should've done was use a primer. That took some time...and SEVERAL coats of white chalk paint! After the paint dried I decided I was going to do different designs for each block. I covered the sides with different patterns using the scrapbook paper that I picked out at Hobby Lobby, above. Those little honey comb stickers were too cute to pass up but I didn't end up using those.
I didn't have gold paint, nor did I think it would work well to try to paint these letters so I used a gold paint pen. It was NOT cooperating with me at all but once I started I was ALL IN! I was determined to make this work! I didn't do this one in a live video so I'll try to explain a few things the best I can, for those that may be interested in how I did it. You won't be surprised to hear that I didn't measure anything. I honestly don't even know why I own a ruler of any kind. Seriously.
I randomly picked which paper pattern would go where, as I went along. I didn't preplan how many of what pattern or anything like that. Totally winged it, as usual. Instead of measuring, what I decided to do was coat the side of the block I was working on with mod podge and lay it on whatever paper I was coating that side with. Then I used an Exacto knife to cut around the block. If more than one side of the block had the same pattern of paper, I left one side 'uncut', coated it with mod podge and rolled it to cover that side and so on. Does that make sense? Maybe I should've used the word 'turned' instead of 'rolled'. Once I had the individual blocks all covered with paper I set those aside.
For the bottom blocks that have babies middle and last name, I put two of the long blocks together, adhering them with hot glue. Once they were dry, I hot glued a ribbon around the top of the two I glued together and another ribbon around the bottom. This helped hold it in place. I wrote the words on those blocks after I adhered them and before I wrapped the ribbon.
The ribbons were adorable!! But when I reached the point of adding them I really wished I'd picked up a few more patterns. I chose the giraffe ribbon for the top block because it was kind of wide and I didn't want that to detract from the rest of the blocks if I had it somewhere in the middle. It was also too wide to wrap around the bottom blocks. In order to create another pattern I decided to wrap some lace around one block and accent with twine. THAT turned out super cute!!
I kept one set of blocks to use for the calendar and put those on the very top, above baby's name. I really hope momma liked this gift. I sure had fun creating it!!
Thank you so much for stopping by my blog once again! I hope you enjoyed this short little description of this super adorable and fun craft!
Don't forget to check out my Facebook Page and share with your crafty friends and fam!!
Have a wonderful week and stay tuned for more super fun crafts here in my blog and on my Facebook Page, where's I'll be doing another live video VERY SOON!!!
Happy Crafting!
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