As a gift for a friend’s first grandchild, I made her alphabet blocks. I had so much fun making these and painting them!
Assembled and treated with a coat of food-grade butcher block conditioner, I had them sitting on plastic bags while the conditioner absorbed.
These look awesome. I sure she was excited!!
Thank you! She was.
Nice work. Did you paint them while they were still masked? If not you have a very steady hand.
Yes, for the most part. Some things had to be painted after removing the masking, and yes, those did require a steady hand. Plus a level of tolerance to embrace the imperfections. Kept reminding myself these are toys to be played with, not showpieces. I left a few graphics entirely unpainted. My goal was to leave one or two per block unpainted, but the painting was so much fun that I kept going! And thank you.
Pretty cool! urn is better than undertaker for the letter U. 
This is a beautiful gift. Did you decide on all of the images for all of the letters, or did you look at other sets?
Agreed! And I desperately wanted an X that wasn’t x-ray or xylophone, but alas, it wasn’t to be…
Thank you. I chose the images. Most of them are freebies from open source (non-copyrighted) sites. I don’t think I purchased any of them. And sometimes I found out that the way they had been created was a pain to edit and achieve the print I was looking for. So a few graphics were scrapped and replaced with less high-maintenance files.
What a gorgeous set of blocks! I’d be tempted to display them on a high shelf if they were mine.
Wow! Fantastic work! Those will last to be past through the ages! Nice!
What an incredible gift of love! Really wonderful!
Nice! What did you use for paint/coloring? So glossy!
Liquitex acrylics with a couple of Martha Stewart craft paints thrown in. The pearly blue MS paint was great to mix in and create shimmery colors. It made a really nice silver to use on the moon.
Thank you!
Thanks. The colors look great. Are they child/nontoxic?
Yes, they are non-toxic. It took me bit to find the actual language I was looking for. When evaluating paints, look for the “AP” label and the statement that the product conforms to “ASTM D 4236.” The 4236 regulation just indicates that the packaging has properly identified all hazardous materials. The “AP” is the indication that it is an “approved product” and therefore non-toxic.
The AP is visible on a few of the tubes of paint in my photo. Thanks for asking the question…it’s an important consideration.Great, thanks!
Where would I find the pattern for the basic blank blocks. I would like to do my own letters and words.
I used boxes.py to create a simple 2x2 closed box. Would enjoy seeing photos of your creations. Have fun with it!
Toward the end, I almost wished I had added something inside one of them, like a note or time capsule of the year. And what a year it was!
