Dad Block Tutorial

While searching pinterest for Mother's and Father's day crafts to do with Little Man, I came across these photo blocks.  I thought they would be a good gift for Michael.  I sort of stashed the idea in the back of my brain and decided on Thursday before Father's Day that I would go ahead and do it.

I did a quick photo shoot of Olivia after her morning nap.  Then we ran to Target to get them printed.  I decided to go with sepia prints.

I went to Lowe's to get a 2 by 4 cut.  The hardware stores are suppose to cut your wood for you free of charge.  They did, but the guy that was helping me was acting like he was doing me a favor.  I wasn't too pleased with the customer service.  I'm going to try Home Depot next time. :)

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, a 2 by 4 is actually 3 1/2 by 1 1/2, so I had him cut every 3 1/2 inches to get square blocks.  He "graciously" cut 5 squares for me (rolls eyes).  I'm glad I did, because one was shorter and some of the wood wasn't the greatest.

I mostly used supplies I already had.  Unfortunately, the sandpaper block I had was low grade because it was originally used for paper.  This made me work a little harder, but it still worked out alright.  I sanded the edges down.  Some of the wood started out a bit rough.

After sanding, I made sure that all three blocks lined up nicely.

I knew I wanted to have a distressed look, so I painted the blocks brown to start.

Then I did two layers of cream (waiting about 5 to 10 minutes in between coats to dry).

You could very lightly still see some brown underneath.  I was ok with this.

Then I took my sanding block and distressed the edges.

Next, I cut the pictures to size.  I forgot my modge podge at home, so I just used tacky glue and painted it on the blocks to get a nice, thin even coat.

Using my silhouette, I cut the letters out for "DAD" onto vinyl.

I used the century gothic font so that I could have the rounded letters.

Originally I was going to use brown vinyl, but when I put the first D on it blended in too much.

Michael's favorite color is blue, so I went that route instead.

I just applied the vinyl letters to the blocks.

I did plan on using a sealer that I had, but opted not to for now.

I am pleased with how it turned out.  Michael loved it too.