'Blessed' Picture Blocks

I've been slowly but surely finishing up a few fall projects for around the house lately. 

Husby was sweet enough to get out all my fall decor boxes and I spent last week making the house look nice & cozy for fall :) 

I shared my fall mantle last week with you guys & besides the mantle, I only really decorated a few other key areas in the house- the foyer table, my faux mantle & a couple other pieces set out on random tables & shelves.
I didn't feel like going too crazy and getting everything out this year. 

I figure keeping up with a newborn is a good excuse to not go all out right now!! 

One project I wanted to do were some picture blocks. 

I intended to use them for my mantle but then ended up not liking how they looked up there once they were done.
So they ended up being a gorgeous centerpiece for the dining room table. 

Aren't they fun? 

I love how they turned out and they were the perfect way to display some new photos from this past year. 

Because we definitely feel so blessed from having our sweet Baby M :) 

Excuse the quality of these next few pictures- they were all taken on my Iphone. 

Gotta do what you gotta do!

So the blocks all started like this...

These are the scrap wood blocks that hubby found on the side of the road and brought home for me. 

He knows the way to my heart :) 

I grabbed seven of them and laid them out to decide how I wanted them to look.

I didn't care that they were uneven sizes- I wanted the staggered look.

But if you're more OCD than me, run them through a table saw to make them all the same size. 

I found all the pictures I wanted to use on the blocks and made them black and white. 

Since my printer has decided it hates printing good quality pictures, I sent them to walmart to get printed.

Don't you love when they ask you for a copyright release for pictures that YOU took? 

Always makes me half frustrated and half proud that they are considered professional enough to get a release. Ha. 

My blocks were the perfect size to fit 5x7s so that's what I printed. 

After laying the pictures out on the blocks, I trimmed them a bit so the blocks would be framing them. 

The white small letters are from Hobby Lobby. 

After placing everything out, I gave the blocks a good sanding to smooth them down then stained them first with dark walnut stain. 

After the stain dried, I dry-brushed them with my favorite enamel white paint so that the stain and grain of the wood would still show through. 

No sanding necessary since I didn't paint thick layers on them. 

After they were all dry, I adhered my pictures to the blocks and then hot-glued each of the letters into the corner of the blocks. 

I spraypainted them gold to bring a pop of my favorite fall color in :) 

I love seeing all the sweet faces of the ones I love most :) 

I really just needed a great excuse to print some pictures of baby M out and have them up! 

The table still looked a little bare with just the blocks on them so I whipped up an easy table runner with some fabric I found at JoAnns.

Me & my sewing machine have finally come to a truce :) 

I added some glittery pumpkins & our hardware store pumpkins we made last year all around the blocks. 

I'm in love with how these turned out & love seeing those sweet faces every time I come into the dining room. 

What do you guys think? 

It's such a fun & easy way to display pictures! 

On another fun note, Hubby gave me an early Christmas gift of a new embroidery/sewing machine so I'm going crazy learning the ins & outs of that! 

I hope to have a few pieces done soon to share :) 

Hope you guys are having a great week! 

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