Letter Blocks

This was a fun gift for my 6 year old daughter and me to make for a couple of my little nephews for Christmas this past year.  It was inexpensive as I already had paints, brushes and stampers as well as some of the wooden letter cutouts from a project I made two years ago.  I did purchase some more of the letter cutouts and the blocks too.  They were on a 50% off sale at the Hobby Shop when I picked them up and so I made gifts for two children for around $5.

I chose to make a set of blue blocks for one child and a set of brown for the other child.  The letters were painted with dark or primary colors so they weren’t too feminine and were given “spots” just for fun.  I thought both blue and brown would go with the boys bedrooms and if they got mixed up or chose to use them together during playtime they are easily separated once again.  The blocks can be decorative on their dressers or a shelf when not in use and spell the boys names.  They can also be played with and used to spell words of all sorts with the letters that are on four sides of the block.  Perhaps these will help them learn to spell and write their own names.

On the ends I stamped on some painted shapes that are fun to look at and might give ideas for spelling games with the blocks.  On the other end I stamped on words to make fun sentences or start a story.  Of course it is double the fun when both sets of blocks are used to play with together.  The paint is non-toxic if they do end up in somebody’s mouth but this is a good item for parent-child playtime anyway.

These were packaged simply in card boxes packed with brown confetti and wrapped with brown and white paper cut from bags and tied with rafia and gold wire.  The labels tied onto the rafia serve as ornaments, made by my children, and utilize items that I had around from craft projects of previous years.  These were simple to make and while they took several hours to put together they were a lot of fun to put together while spending time working with my own children.  We hope the boys have a lot of fun with these blocks and enjoy looking at them in the years to come.