Happy Saturday!!
As promised, I am posting about the project for the 1st graders in my friend Michele's classroom. She was looking for something to give them as an end of year gift along with the Shutterfly Memory book that she traditionally does. (If you've never done a memory book at shutterfly you really ought to - hers always comes out so darling!!)
Anyway, I digress. Here is a picture of the sides of the photo blocks (I just noticed that I forgot to include the group pic side - oops):
I think they came out very nice and hope the kids and their parents like them. They were not hard to make at all - it just took some planning and time. I've seen photo block tutorials all over blogland and was tickled to be able to make some for Michele.
I wanted to do them with Mod Podge but since they needed to be ready for next Tuesday that made it difficult to do since it requires several coats and drying time in between! And with 18 blocks to make it would have been a long process!!! So I had to come up with an alternative plan. I decided instead of using Mod Podge I would laminate the pictures for each side and affix them with glue. And you can see the end result above! If you want to try your own here is what I used.
Supplies:
(1) 4x4 pressure treated post, 6 feet in length and cut into even sized blocks
hand sander and 80 grit sandpaper
white acrylic paint (we did 3 coats)
foam brushes
pictures or graphics printed on plain paper (ours are 6 sided but next time, only 5 with cork on the bottom would be better)
laminator and laminating sheets (i used my Purple Cow laminator and 3 mil sheets)
scissors
cotton swabs
Elmers AND Krazy Glue
Making Them:
My Darling Husband cut the post into 3.5" square blocks for us and Michele and I sanded and painted them. We came up with the designs and pictures we wanted to use (I used PSE 9.0) and then printed them on plain paper. That worked well since they ended up getting laminated and were thin and easy to adhere smoothly onto the block. (FYI - the dimension of the graphics were 3.25 x 3.25) Cut them out. To affix them I put a dab of good old Elmer's school glue on the center of the side I was working on and spread it with a cotton swab. Then the Krazy Glue went directly on the laminated pics edges to insure they stuck well. I suppose there are other glue products I could have used, but I had Elmer's and Krazy glue on hand! As I said before, next time I would only do 5 sides and put cork on the bottoms of the blocks.
And there you have it! Photo Blocks 101 - LOL!!!! Here's a close up of one of the sides (we're the Belmont Bees - can you tell??):
(Sorry about the flash glare!)
And I took a picture of Cristian's EOG Lucky Penny since I forgot to do that before I sent the set to school for his class. I used all different colors behind the poem and Cristian got a green one! Take a look:
My husband and I came up with the poem. The kids were a nervous wreck about the End of Grade tests they were going to take. We hoped this would be a confidence builder along with the cards of encouragement that each parent sent for their child on the days of the test. I shined up 54 pennies and stamped the word lucky on them. Then put the whole thing in a little bag that I found in the craft section at Walmart. Cute, huh?
Well, I've rambled on long enough today.... Have a wonderful Saturday! See ya soon.
