Sunday, July 8, 2012

DIY: rainbow blocks

i'm pretty serious about nia being surrounded by plenty of old fashion, wooden + classic toys. i think it just makes for more creative minds. i really wanted to buy one of these boikido sets, but they were just too expensive to justify. 

so i was super excited to try to create our own wild set from the cheaper, yet bland educo ones

  
  (educo) 
 (boikido)




                                                                                 

here are a few of the blocks before. they were pretty boring in person.



i got out a few of my favorite martha paints (you can buy them here in tons of different colors). i had to narrow down my choices in color, so i picked the brightest ones that would coordinate well together on the already existing basic rainbow colors. 




the peppermint glitter paint was perfect for adding shimmery sea spray to my painted wave blocks and just adding a thin, single coat to a few solid blocks was perfect way to jazz them up a touch.

and after many coats, drying time (which was extra long with all this humidity lately) and overtaking the dining table, here was my finished project...



overall i'm pretty happy with the results. i did decide to leave a few of the natural wood color ones plain. if i had all the time in the world i would have experimented more with design ideas and given all the blocks the proper 4+ coats they needed, but i had to keep a curious toddler from the table full of paint, blocks and glitter. c'est la vie. 





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