Photo Blocks x Six (in lieu of Thoughts for Thursday this week)

It's been a super long day (as usual). I worked today and then came home and went swimming.... not in MY pool (cuz it's still filtering and sanitizing) but the brand spankin' new Payson City Pool! It's an AWESOME pool complex with a lap pool, kiddie - zero entry pool with kiddie slides and games, spill buckets, water fountains, 2 speed slides, a lazy river, bubble couch and vortex pool (whirlpool). We've been anxiously awaiting the completion of this pool and tonight it was open for a trial run with city employees and their families. Since Brent is on the city council, that makes him an "employee" and I got to go and brought Trish and the Mini C's as my guests. It was so much fun and we were so exhausted after just 2.5 hours. SO much fun!

SO anyway, I did promise a tutorial today for something fun and SIMPLE... so here ya go!

The youngest Mini C turned FIVE a couple of weeks ago...

Last year I gave Mini C #3 a set of these blocks with Sadie pics on it and Mini C #4 was all sorts of "all over them". Since MC#3's bday, MC#4 has been telling mom, "Gosh, I sure hope Erin gives me some blocks for my birthday", "I like those blocks, I hope Erin makes me some blocks" LOL! Sooooooo, one day MC#4 came to spend an afternoon with me and Sadie while mom and dad attended a funeral and I quickly snapped some photos of MC#4 and Sadie playing in the yard. We had a blast! (I'm using photos of my original block set as I did not take photos of MC#4's set before it was wrapped and taken to the party.)

Here's a couple of pics of the original set of photo blocks that stays at "Aunt Erin's" house. (These are pretty hammered because they get played with quite a bit.)



These are SUPER easy to make and you can make them even while all your crafting stuff is hidden away in your former guest room. You just have to beg your sweet husband (see photo #1) to crawl up and over everything to fetch your CM photo cutter and your Xyron 500 and hope that the Mod Podge is where it's supposed to be in the closet. :)

Here we go:

1.) Locate CM Cutter, Xyron 500, and SIX of your favorite photos and pray you have some clear space on a counter or table. (Or if you're like me, you push your keyboard aside and do it on the tiny dresser top that is a temporary home to your monitor and printer.)





2.) Don't forget your 2" square wooden blocks. A friend of mine bought these online in major bulk for a Super Saturday project we did last year. I don't remember where, but I am sure you can find these at various craft stores, too. Or, if your dh is handy, you can beg him to do the tedious job of cutting down 2x4's to 2x2 blocks. Good luck. :P



3.) Cut each 4x6" photo into 2x2" squares. I found that the guillotine style paper cutters like CM's works the best for precision cuts.


4.) Place each photo piece on the Xryon platform thingy and line up and run through the machine, several pieces at a time, be careful not to overlap the photo pieces as they go through the machine. Notice I figured that tidbit out after the fact???



5.) Ok these instructions are taking longer to type than it took to make the dang set of photo blocks. LOL. Let's see if I can speed this up and wrap up this post so I can go shower and wash the stinky sunscreen off me and hit the sack!

So once your pics are all glued up, you simply peel n stick to each block. You will probably end up trimming a few of the photo pieces because the wooden blocks are not always perfectly 2". No big deal, just simply pull out your craft knife and slice away on a cutting mat.




6.) Make sure that your photo actually works and that there is only ONE piece of each photo on each block. (Don't ask me how I know this. LOL!)

Sometimes it also helps to stack them by photo while gluing them onto the blocks or move your blocks to a separate pile after you glue one piece of each photo to each block. I found this out the hard way and ended up peeling off several pieces because I had two pieces from the same photo on one block. Not fun and you usually end up reprinting photos. Aren't you glad I made the mistakes first so you don't have to? LOL!



7.) Your final steps are to Mod Podge (a couple of coats, dry between coats) with a small foam brush over the photos and edges of the blocks to seal the photos. You may also want to paint or spray a varnish over the Mod Podge to seal it all in. I usually let my blocks dry really well if I am going to varnish them. As long as you don't have itty bitties chewing and slobbering on the photo blocks you should be fine to just coat them with Mod Podge.

Voila! You have a fun photo block puzzle for all to enjoy! (MC#4 and Sadie hanging out in the photo to the right.)