Building Blocks of Love

My wonderful husband truly does know me better than anyone! (other my maybe my mom and God of course!) For Valentine's day this year he bought me a gift certificate and these wood blocks he found at our local craft store. He saw a display of them transformed and thought they would look great on our mantle.

Here is what I used:

• Randomly sized wood blocks
• Wood stain (I used a soy based stain in Cherry)
• Vinyl letters
• pictures of me and my love
• Modge Podge (I used glossy finish) 
• fun decorating trinkets

I found this great brand for fun trinkets and decorations that could be used on all kinds of fun projects! It is Tim Holtz. Below is a picture on the product I used on the corners of some of my blocks but he has tons of fun stuff! Check him out at www.timholtz.com.

I started out by staining my blocks. I did two coats to get a rich warm color. The stain bottle said I need to but a varnish, but that was an extra $7 and you will learn quickly that I am very thrifty! I decided to test and see how mode podge would look first because I have tons of it always lying around. It ended up looking just as good! I then put my vinyl letters on. It was a little hard to get them to really stick to the wood and it took some maneuvering, but I got them on. In the end the modge podge really sealed them on. I mode podged my pictures on. I bought some fun decorations to go on to my blocks but in the end decided to keep it somewhat simple and classy and decided to just use some vintage buttons to add highlight. I sealed everything with modge podge again. Here is my finished product! I pretty much love them!