Picture Blocks and Letter Rice Bags

(Sorry about the picture quality.  I've tried long enough to fix it!)

My nephew just turned three and I had the hardest time coming up with something to make him for his birthday.  Finally, I came across the project from Somewhat Simple where she put a picture on one side of nine different cubes.  Perfect!

  I saw these ABC blocks for $2 at Michaels and thought they would be perfect for this project since my nephew is learning his letters and words.I only used 4 of the sides to keep the letters showing.  I got 4 pictures that were taken over the the past 3 years.

All I did was cut the picture down into the sizes I needed (kind of tricky!)  I then used mod podge to glue on each picture.  Finally, sand down the edges a little and finish with a coat of mod podge on top. 

The second gift I did was make some letters that spelled his name.  Janelle did a similar project HERE.  The difference with mine is I used cotton fabric so the edges would fray.

I just traced out my own pattern for the letters and then used that to cut my fabric.  Make sure you don't make my mistake of not making part of the letter wide enough. If you look closely, my letter R is a little light on the rice in the middle!  After sewing the wrong sides together with a 1.5 inch gap, I washed and dried them to make them fray.  I then filled them with rice and then closed up the whole.