Countdown to Halloween

Last month one of my favorite bloggers announced that she was going to do a monthly calendar series.  I loved the graphics she used for her September  project and couldn't wait until this month.

Last year I helped a friend make some countdown blocks and I was wishing I had some of my own.  My wish came true when Kiki released her countdown to Halloween artwork.  As you can see from her example she intended it to be made a bit different.  I took the images into gimp and shrunk them down a bit and cropped them square to fit my blocks.  I also cropped the "Countdown to Halloween" image and squished it a bit to be the right size for my project.

After I got my images the right size I took them into libre office and put them on a page and then saved it as a pdf and took it to the local print shop and had them print it out on cardstock for me.  (There's probably an easier way to do this but I did what worked for me!)

To find out what numbers to put on what block I googled "countdown blocks" and came up with this blogpost.  I'm sorry I was in such a hurry to make it that I didn't take the step by step pictures for it but here are the basic instructions:

1.  Download artwork from kiki create website and resize it or make your own artwork.
2.  Cut the wood to size  (my blocks are about 3" square and the base is 3 1/2" x 6 1/2")
3.  Sand wood and paint it black.  (You can just paint the edges of the sides that will be covered with paper.)
4.  After letting the paint dry apply a thin layer of mod podge and apply the paper to each side.
5.  Once the mod podge dries sand the edges of the wood to distress them.
6.  Apply a final layer of mod podge over the entire surface to finish it.

I have to say that this is one of my favorite projects ever!  And it was so easy and turned out super cute.  I really liked not having to layer scrapbook paper and vinyl numbers like most of the countdown blocks I've seen.

Thank you Kiki for sharing your amazing printables!

P.S.  Today she posted a Halloween Pack full of amazing goodies that you can download for just $3.  Be sure to check it out!