Wooden Wedding Blocks

My best friend got married the other week and although I couldn't go I wanted to make her a special wedding gift. After some Pinterest browsing I decided to do something with vinyl lettering on wooden blocks. Since I don't have a cutter (yet) I found a local friend who was able to help me out. I used the larger letter S for their last name then the other two blocks will have two rows of lettering each.

Next, I had my husband cut up a 6x2 board into 3 blocks. 1 was 5 1/2", 1 was 8" and the other was 10". I sanded the blocks down and here is what the blocks looked like.

Now the blocks were ready to be painted. I have a large growing stash of latex paint which I picked 3 colors that coordinated. A dark brown, white and a tan-ish grey, I promise they work. Once I painted them I gave them a little sanding to give them that vintage look, just around the edges. 

Finally I added the letters, then used I believe it was the red label mod podge. I noticed there was a bit of tackiness so I finished the blocks with a high-gloss sealer around the edges to get rid of that. And the finished product is below. Since we ended up using a larger piece of wood than I intended these are a bit wobbly when stacked up. However, I believe she is just having them lined up along their mantle instead which is also a great idea. I hope to do more gifts like this in the future, it was very fun.