Easy Wooden Alphabet Blocks Tutorial

Here are a few lost photos of some ABC blocks I made for Daniel when he was learning his letters. He still loves them and now he's using them to spell. They're so easy to make!

Supplies:
Jenga Blocks (I used a no-name brand and saved a few dollars)
Permanent Marker, preferably non-toxic
Paper
Optional-Stencils, if you don't like drawing!

1.) Plan your simple drawings for each letter on the sheet of paper. Simple is best. Here are the objects I used, in alphabetical order:
Apple, Balloon, Candles, Duck, Egg, Fire, Gingerbread man, Hat, Ice cream, Juicebox, Kite, Leaf, Mittens, Nose, Oven, Pencil, Queen, Rabbit, Stars, Teepee, Umbrella, Vacuum, Watermelon, Xylophone, Yarn, Zipper.

2.) Start drawing! It only took me one evening for the whole project because I made everything as simple as possible. I drew the upper and lower case letter with a picture of an object starting with that letter on one side, and left the other blank. I repeated the capital letter on both ends of the block as well.

3.) I used a few of the extra blocks for simple sight words as well. Right after I gave Daniel his blocks, he saw a coupon (he had just turned 3) and said "Mommy, why does this paper say 'off'?" I just about fell over! I wrote one word on each side On/Off, Mom/Dad, Open/Close, Yes/No, Go/Stop, Hi/Bye etc.

This is a great gift because you can personalize it for your child with color, drawings and sight words that you think they'd enjoy!

Make your own lacing cards

Last year we decided to do an entirely handmade Christmas. It was a much bigger project than I thought, but so worth it! These are the lacing cards that I made for Daniel. I was inspired by some Martha Stewart Alphabet Cards and this tutorial over at Little Birdie Secrets.



I punched holes all the way around all 26 cards and then laminated them afterward. If you punch first and then laminate, you have to punch it out again, but you get a better seal around the holes. With my very active, very boyish little one, sturdy is VERY important so it was well worth the time for me. Since there were so many cards, it was challenging to keep this project at a resonable budget. Who knew laminating ($40 for 13 sheets at staples!) and shoelaces ($1-2/pair x 13=$3-26) could be so expensive! It almost became a $50 project! Luckily, my church let me use their laminating machine and I found a case of vintage shoelaces cheap on ebay!

I just brought them out again, and am hoping he will get the hang of it now that he's almost 3!