Decorative Cube

The other day I was strolling through Michaels and was excited to find their assortment of cool, unfinished wooden shapes. A friend of mine was having a birthday and i still needed a gift for her, so I picked up one of these cubes to see what I could do with it. Of course I had to use paper and Mod Podge. If you like it, here's how to make your own. These have a lot of possibilities.

Here's the cube I used.

Step 1. Use the cube to trace out all the sides on the paper. They don't have to be perfect.
Step 2. Cut them out.
Step 3. If you love paper as much as I do, spend a minute looking at it...loving it.

Step 4. Podge the paper onto the cube. MP usually works best if you put it on the surface first, and then put your paper down on it. Use a credit card, or something with a similar shape to smooth it out if it starts to bubble underneath. Let it dry.
Step 5. Once it's dry underneath, paint on two coats of Podge. Let that dry.

See, the edges don't meet perfectly. That's okay because of what comes next.

Step 6. Sand down all your edges and corners. Be sure to sand through the Podge, and back down to the wood so that it looks like this.
Step 7. Take out your trusty Distress Ink, and ink the edges and corners.

It'll turn out like this...

I decided to add the initials of my friend and, her boyfriend, so I cut out the letters and gave them a heavy Podge coating. For MP newbies, Mod Podge goes on a clearish white, but dries clear.
Here it is after it dried. I wasn't totally happy with the way I distressed the letters, but oh well. They also should have been a little bigger.
This was the top. As I don't have any kind of cutting machine (weep), I'm still cutting everything by hand...it's sort of a pain. Oh well.
In retrospect, I sorta wish I had left the lettering off, but I wanted a personalized present...so it is what it is. I think I would know how to do it better next time.

Don't these have great possibilities? They would look great on top of a mantel...spelling something out, or with pictures. Or even just papered and podged and stacked on a side table...or in a nursery. So many ideas!

This post is linked up to Sassy Sites' Trash to Treasure Tuesday.