The Best Homemade Christmas Present: Painted Building Blocks

The putting away of childish things is progressing, but it is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. The existence of the kids' playroom has allowed me to ignore all the once-beloved but long-ignored toys that they possess, since they're all stored tidily on shelves and not in the way.

But with one teenager headed off to college very shortly, I've promised the other teenager that we can remodel the playroom into a private bedroom just for her. It's long overdue, since the kids have shared one small bedroom for their entire lives without (much) complaint, but even I admit that I can no longer expect two nearly-grown adult children to continue sharing their decade-old IKEA bunk bed in their single tiny bedroom during college breaks.

I want to shrink these children back down to ages four and six just for a few hours, just so we can play blocks again while listening to Amelia Bedelia books on tape.

Anyway, we've already handled picture books and toy animals--

--we organized the LEGOs back during the pandemic lockdown, around the time that Matt got rid of almost all of the Barbies and their stuff (and no, I still haven't started speaking to him again...), and a couple of weeks ago, with a present idea for my toddler niece in mind, I decided to take care of the blocks.

The kids have a vast, well-loved, much played with building block collection. They wouldn't even be embarrassed to tell you that they played with blocks well into their teenaged years, because blocks are freaking AWESOME. Included in our collection were lots of scraps and seconds, though, so, first I sorted through all the blocks to cull the ones that the kids had had fun playing with, but weren't worth saving. Then, Matt helped me wash the blocks that we were keeping--and WOW, was that water gross!

We put most of the squeaky-clean blocks into storage bins--and I even separated the marble run blocks from the building blocks, a chore I'd been wanting to do for the entire time we've owned the marble run and yet somehow never got to--but first each person in the family picked out several blocks for a very special project:

Matt and Will each painted a few blocks, but Syd and I got VERY invested in our individual block-painting visions and spent most of the weekend just like this:

Syd designed her block set to resemble the work of one of her favorite artists, Mary Blair, specifically to mimic the Disneyland It's a Small World aesthetic. Here's how her blocks turned out!

I love how her blocks allow one to connect a line or continue a color in interesting ways.

I wanted to paint a set of triangles with a connecting rainbow on one side--

--and a complete color wheel on the other. Here's how that turned out!

I like how you can mix them up:

These are the ones that Matt and Will painted:

Obviously, we couldn't pack them up and mail them to our favorite toddler until we'd made sure that they work properly!

They work great!

Not gonna lie--I am VERY likely to dig some more building blocks out of storage so I can repeat this project, either for my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop or just for fun. It was QUITE satisfying, and I was left with the feeling that there's lots more to explore regarding block painting and pattern building.

How to Make Fabric Decoupaged Blocks

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

Don't let outgrown building blocks languish unloved in a back closet when there are so many beautiful ways to upcycle them!

I've been in the process of slowly upcycling my kids' old building blocks for years (I promise, there will still be more building blocks in the world when/if I have grandchildren!), and one of my favorite ways to upcycle building blocks is to turn them into holiday decorations using simple decoupage techniques.

I've already shown you how easy it is to decoupage blocks with paper, but you'll be pretty excited to know that decoupaging blocks with fabric is EVEN easier! Fabric is sturdier than paper, which means that you need fewer layers of Mod Podge to seal it, and the surface is so much more forgiving than paper, so you'll find that every Mod Podge layer looks nice and smooth, in stark contrast to all the fussing that one tends to have to do with paper decoupage.

For paper or fabric decoupage, the supplies are nearly identical. Here's what you need:

Supplies

• Outgrown building blocks. I love the look of plain cubes, but you can decoupage any block shape.
• Fabric, pencil, and scissors. You'll be fussy cutting your fabric to size, then trimming, if necessary.
• Mod Podge and a foam paintbrush. Foam paintbrushes aren't as eco-friendly as natural hair brushes, but they apply the glue smoothly, and if you wash them well after each use they'll last forever.

Directions

1. Prepare your fabric. If it's new fabric, there's no need to wash and dry it just for this project, but you should iron out any creases.
2. Measure and cut the fabric. I like to fussy cut the fabric pieces for my decoupaged fabric blocks, so I use the block itself as my template, tracing around each side on the reverse of the fabric piece. You can do this with a pencil or piece of chalk, and if you cut INSIDE the lines that you drew, the piece will match the side of the block more closely.
3. Glue the fabric to the block. Working on one side at a time, paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the block, carefully smooth the fabric piece onto that side, and then paint another thin layer of Mod Podge on top of the fabric. Let it dry completely before you glue another side--this isn't a hands-on time-consuming project, but it DOES take up a lot of resting time!

You might think that these cute blocks are only for decorating--and yes, they DO make super cute decorations!--but once they're sealed with Mod Podge, a kid can play with them just as they do any other blocks. I wouldn't let a kid who's still mouthing things have them, but any other kids would probably love having some fun, festive holiday elements added to their open-ended block play.

A DIY Binomial Cube/Trinomial Cube Manipulative

If you've figured out that you can make a manipulative to literally represent (a + b + c)^2, then it's not a big stretch to figure out that you can also make a manipulative to literally represent (a + b + c)^3.

One is a literal square. The other is a literal cube!

I made this DIY trinomial cube to match faces with my DIY trinomial square. This means that it's also set to a 1" standard, NOT a 1 cm standard as are most of my other DIY math manipulatives. But since it was soooooo much easier to find 1", 1.5", and 2" blocks than it was to find 1 cm, 1.5 cm, and 2 cm blocks, it also means that I could take some major shortcuts on this build and save myself a lot of time gluing teeny-tiny wooden blocks together.

I'll take the shortcut every time!

The math isn't exactly tricky on this, but there's a lot of it, and a lot of moving parts, so bear with me.

The trinomial cube has three layers. Layer A is a trinomial square in which every prism has Height a. For my project, a = 1".

Layer B is a trinomial square in which every prism has Height b. For my project, b = 1.5".

Layer C is a trinomial square in which every prism has Height c. For my project, c = 2".

The base block for each layer is a wooden cube that I purchased from Casey's Wood Products:

From left to right, that's a 2" cube, a 1.5" cube, and a 1" cube.

Let's go back to Layer A. We already know that every prism in Layer A will have a height of 1". The cube in Layer A is a^3, with a measurement of 1" x 1" x 1". This is nothing but a 1" wooden block, with no extra pieces added to it. As part of this layer you're also going to have a piece that's b^2, and a piece that's c^2, each with a height of 1", and the prisms that combine the measurements of ab, ac, and bc, each with a height of 1"

For every prism in this layer, you can start with a 1" wooden block, and glue on either .5" wooden blocks or 1" wooden blocks to make the correct sizes.

Here are all the prisms for Layer A:

• a^3 (1" x 1" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block.
• ab^2 (1.5" x 1.5" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus 10 .5" wooden blocks.

You need one ab^2 for Layer A and two ab^2 for Layer B.

• ac^2 (2" x 2" x 1"). This is four 1" wooden blocks.

You need one ac^2 for Layer A and two ac^2 for Layer C.

• two copies of  ba^2 (1.5" x 1" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus four .5" wooden blocks.
• two copies of ca^2 (2" x 1" x 1"). This is two 1" wooden blocks.
• two copies of abc (1" x 1.5" x 2"). This is two 1" wooden blocks plus eight .5" wooden blocks.

You need two copies of abc for every layer, so six in total.

Every prism in Layer B will have a height of 1.5". The cube in Layer B is b^3, with a measurement of 1.5" x 1.5" x 1.5". This is nothing but a 1.5" wooden block, with no extra pieces added to it. As part of this layer you're also going to have a piece that's a^2, and a piece that's c^2, each with a height of 1.5", and the prisms that combine the measurements of ab, ac, and bc, each with a height of 1.5".

Here are all the prisms for Layer B:

• ba^2 (1.5" x 1" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus four .5" wooden blocks.

You need two ba^2 for Layer A and one ba^2 for Layer B.

• b^3 (1.5" x 1.5" x 1.5"). This is a 1.5" wooden block.
• bc^2 (1.5" x 2" x 2"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus twenty-one .5" wooden blocks.

You need one bc^2 in Layer B and two bc^2 in Layer C.

• two copies of ab^2 (1.5" x 1.5" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus 10 .5" wooden blocks.
• two copies of abc (1" x 1.5" x 2"). This is two 1" wooden blocks plus eight .5" wooden blocks.
• two copies of cb^2 (2" x 1.5" x 1.5"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus nine .5" wooden blocks.

You need two cb^2 for Layer B and one cb^2 for Layer C.

Every prism in Layer C will have a height of 2". The cube in Layer C is c^3, with a measurement of 2" x 2" x 2". This is nothing but a 2" wooden block, with no extra pieces added to it. As part of this layer you're also going to have a piece that's a^2, and a piece that's b^2, each with a height of 2", and the prisms that combine the measurements of ab, ac, and bc, each with a height of 2".

Here are all the prisms for Layer C:

• ca^2 (2" x 1" x 1"). This is two 1" wooden blocks.

You need two ca^2 for Layer A and one ca^2 for Layer B.

• cb^2 (2" x 1.5" x 1.5"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus nine .5" wooden blocks.
• c^3 (2" x 2" x 2"). This is a 2" wooden block.
• two copies of abc (1" x 1.5" x 2"). This is two 1" wooden blocks plus eight .5" wooden blocks.
• two copies of ac^2 (1" x 2" x 2"). This is four 1" wooden blocks.
• two copies of bc^2 (1.5" x 2" x 2"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus twenty-one .5" wooden blocks.

I painted these prisms the same way I painted the trinomial square prisms, except for the cube, every face will be painted. All the 1"^2 faces are yellow, the 1"x1.5" faces are green--



--the 1.5"^2 faces are blue--



--the 1"x 2" faces are orange, the 1.5" x 2" faces are purple, and the 2"^2 faces are red:



Some prisms in different layers are identical, so here are the total number of prisms by type that I needed:

• one a^3 (1" x 1" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block.
• one b^3 (1.5" x 1.5" x 1.5"). This is a 1.5" wooden block.
• one c^3 (2" x 2" x 2"). This is a 2" wooden block.

Here's a^3, b^3, and c^3.

• three ba^2 (1.5" x 1" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus four .5" wooden blocks.

• three ca^2 (2" x 1" x 1"). This is two 1" wooden blocks.

• three ab^2 (1.5" x 1.5" x 1"). This is a 1" wooden block plus 10 .5" wooden blocks.

You need one ab^2 for Layer A and two ab^2 for Layer B.

• six abc (1" x 1.5" x 2"). This is two 1" wooden blocks plus eight .5" wooden blocks.

you need two abc prisms for each layer.

There are a lot of abc blocks, so thankfully Spots was willing to help me photograph them!

• three cb^2 (2" x 1.5" x 1.5"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus nine .5" wooden blocks.

three cb^2

• three ac^2 (1" x 2" x 2"). This is four 1" wooden blocks.

three ac^2

• three bc^2 (1.5" x 2" x 2"). This is a 1.5" wooden block plus twenty-one .5" wooden blocks.

three bc^2

 Spots is sorry that she knocked over my blocks, so here's a blep to make up for it:

And also a boop for good measure:

 And here's what it looks like when it's all finished!

LAYER A

LAYER B

LAYER C

Spots is still not helping...

The kids wandered over as I was finishing photographing the cube (meaning that now I had two teenagers AND a cat helping me...), so I told them this was a puzzle that I'd just finished building and invited them to see if they could put it together:

They didn't notice that it was a pattern, at first, and so made some unworkable choices:

Eventually, though, a light bulb came on...

And behold! It's laid out unusually, but it's our trinomial cube!

Here's the Montessori setup for the binomial and trinomial cubes. They're normally given to small children to work as a puzzle, which is a great way to make that higher level math familiar and not scary at all when they come to it later.

And here are a couple more references, if you want to plan a lesson around the binomial or trinomial cube:

• Using the binomial cube in algebra.
• Video walk-through of the trinomial cube.
• Printable binomial cube nets. 

Want to see what other mischief we (and the cats) manage to get up to with our brand-new DIY trinomial cube? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page for updates!