Chore And Storytime Dice

My daughter Moriah is 5 years old and I’m trying to figure out ways to make chores fun for her. I was browsing Pinterest one day and found these chore dice someone had made. They were perfect and exactly what I wanted to do ala hybrid.

I thought how fun would it be to throw the dice to determine what chore she had to do that day in addition to her regular chores. I wanted to keep them fun so that they weren’t really chores for her. I also thought it would be perfect for making a dice with all our names on it for story time.

We would roll it and that person got to pick out the book to read. We’ll also use it for prayer time and that person gets to pray for our dinner. Our little 4 month old is too young, but I figured I’d still be using them when he’s old enough to include him. I’m also going to make one for my 2 year old who loves to help out whenever he can and I know he’ll be a little jealous of his big sister’s.

Supplies:

2″ wooden blocks
Mod Podge
foam brush
paint – I used leftover sample paint for my home, but you can use acrylic paint
Epson Premium Matte Photo Paper
favorite digital kit – I used Wonderfully Weird by Geek Chic and Lauren Grier, In The Birdhouse by The Cutting Files, Homemade Memories by Danielle Engebretson and Ju Kneipp and several different fonts
photo editing program – I use PSE9
scissors
sand paper

The first thing I did was sand the edges of my blocks. Wipe off the dust from your blocks and then paint them if you choose to. You can leave them plain if you don’t want to paint them. I used some leftover paint I had on hand from when we were sampling paint colors for our house but it would be so fun to have some fun colors if you choose.

While the blocks are drying, open up your photo editing program. I opened up an 8.5 x 11 blank page. I then created a 1.75″ rounded corner square using my shapes tool and a radius of 50 degrees. I then simplified it and duplicated it several times until I had 12 squares. Now the fun begins.

I opened up all the papers and elements that I wanted to use and then began creating miniature layouts on each of the squares. For the story time squares, I used the alpha and created a square using the first initial of their name. For “mom” and “dad” I used a font. Since there are 5 of us, that left an extra square so I created one square to “roll again”. If you have fewer people in your family, you can use things like “pick two” and the person gets to pick two books or “everyone” which means that everyone gets to pick a book that night.

For Moriah’s chore block, I added a birdhouse using The Cutting Files and that would be for filling the bird feeder with seed. I used the cute little figure in the Homemade Memories kit for helping to make dinner. The other squares I used fonts to say what they were for. One of them is “you pick” and she gets to choose which chore she wants to do. I also did another “roll again” for this one, because I know how fun it is to get to roll again.

Once you’ve completed your squares, print them out on the presentation paper and cut them out.

Now the fun part begins. Using the foam brush, brush a very thin amount of mod podge on the back of a square and “glue” it to the block. Make sure it’s a really thin layer so that it doesn’t bubble up. Another tip is to make sure you don’t get any on your fingers and don’t fiddle with it once you’ve glued it on. This will help prevent the ink from the squares from coming off onto your fingers. Glue all the squares onto your blocks and let them dry completely.

After it’s dried completely, use your foam brush to paint a layer of mod podge over the top of the squares coating all sides of the blocks. I usually do the 5 sides that are showing and then wait for it to completely dry before doing the bottom layer. The less you get your fingers dirty the more successful you’ll be at not smudging your project. After you’ve done one whole coat, you’ll want to do a second coat since you’ll be playing with these blocks.

Make sure you let each coat completely dry before you do your next coat. Let me reiterate how important it is to not fiddle with it to prevent smudging your project. I’ve done it many times and can’t tell you how many projects got smudged and I was totally bummed about it. If you get any glue on your fingers be sure to wash it off before you touch your project because you’ll definitely get some of that ink on your fingers and off of your squares. In the end, I added 3 layers of mod podge. Here’s my finished dice already being played with by the kiddos.

If anyone makes a set of dice, link us up! We’d love to see them and leave you some love. Have a wonderful weekend!

Heather(gw)

Chore And Storytime Dice

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