Baby Blocks Photo Holder

Practical Scrapper Kerri here with you today to share with you a baby project.  It seems like spring and summer time are full of baby showers. In fact, I will be attending two baby showers this weekend.  My project that I created is for one of them as a gift (ps...I hope to be sharing my other gift which is an owl shaped mini album soon to follow at my blog). 

Inspiration comes in the funniest forms and places, and I'm sure you all can attest to that.  My baby block photo holder inspiration came while I was working.  I work in an autism support classroom and in this room we have these 9"x12" plastic boxes that we refer to as "task boxes" for the kids.  One of the task boxes is stacking/creating a pattern of wooden circles and squares on a wooden dowel rod.  I was sitting at the table, looked up from writing some notes to see one of the kiddos had the box out and was spinning the squares around which made me think "that would be a cute way to show off photos". From there, idea was born and process is all here for you to see! Hope you enjoy my baby creation and picture tutorial.

What you will need to create this...

1- square wooden base

1- 3/16" dowel rod 17" in length

 drill and 3/16" drill bit

4- wooden doll heads (spacers)

hot glue gun

1- can of spray paint ( I used brown with a satin finish)

5- 12"x12" sheets of cardstock ( to create cubes)

pattern papers( to embellish cubes)

 Scor-Pal 

 3/16" hole puncher

 ruler

 bone folder

ribbon and other embellishments

To start I cut a 3/16" x 3' wooden dowel to 17" in length (if you buy the dowels in 3ft length you can get two out of it --they are only 54 cents each at Lowes).  Then I found the center of my wooden square base (which I bought at Joann's for $1.59 there are with the wooden bird houses and trinket boxes).  Borrowed my husbands drill and drilled a hole but not going completely all the way through.  You don't want the dowel to come out the bottom.  I hot glued the dowel in the base and gave it two good coats of  brown spray paint. 

Next, I began the process of creating my  blocks.  I create 4- 3.5" cubes.  Starting with a 10.5"x10.5" piece of cardstock, I used my Scor-Pal and scored at 3.5" and 7". 

Rotate your paper a quarter turn and again score at 3.5" and 7".

 

Here you will want to used your bone folder and go along all your score lines and create nice creases so you get a nicely shaped cube and not one that will bow out.  Cut along score lines going only until you get to the center square (you are forming a box with no lid).  You could cut away  those center flaps, but I prefer to keep them and just glue them all down to keep my box more firm.

Before you start gluing the side flaps together, you are going to need to find the center point of the center square.  This will be where your dowel rod will run through.  Using your ruler create two diagonal lines from corner to corner.  where the two lines meet, that is where you will punch your 3/16" hole.

Now, you can glue your flaps to create your box.  I prefer my Beacon's 3 in 1 advance glue as apposed to my ATG runner for these kind of projects.

 

 

Up next, is creating the bottom of your box.  You will need a 4" square piece of paper.  Slide it to the 1/4" marking on your Scor-Pal and score at 1/2" and 4".  Rotate your paper a quarter turn and repeat your scoring to give your a 1/4" border all the way around.

Just as you did when you were finding the center point for the box, you now need to again draw two diagonal lines and punch at the crossing point.  This is the bottom of your cube/box and your dowel rod needs to be able to run through it as well.

Here is your finished cube/box.  All that is left now is to cut your papers and embellish to your liking.

One of the cubes embellished.

After you have finished decorating all of your cubes it's time to put your photo holder together.  Starting from the bottom you will begin with a cube, then for a spacer and what allows your cubes to spin around use wooden circles.  I bought these wooden doll heads that came 6 to a bag for 1.99 (which I used my 40% coupon for at Joann's).  These already have a 3/16 hole drilled through the center of them but, it's really tight fit getting them on the dowel rod.  I drilled mine out to 1/4" to all them to slide on easier ( you can see the one that is brown the hole is bigger).

Here is one side of  photo holder all decorated.

and the other side

Now again here is the finished product that will hold 8- 3"x3" photographs ( there is space for 2 photos on each block).

Hope you enjoyed my little project.  I have lots of plans for these and I'm sure I will be creating these all summer long getting ready to sell them at my local craft fairs I do!  Thanks for stopping in today!

~KERRI
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