Grandma’s Blocks: What I Made and How I Made Them

The first step in making Grandma’s blocks was deciding on the games.

For the first one, I went with numbers from 1 to 25.

The second followed arrows leading to a heart – because, obviously, we love our grandma that much, right?

The third focused on lines from one to five.

The fourth featured five quadrilaterals. Or more precisely… well. No chance I was pronouncing all of that properly, so let’s just say quadrilaterals and move on with our dignity intact.

The fifth game moved into the world of categories: leaves, flowers, weather, faces, and letters.

And the sixth used the same blocks in a more open-ended way, with a design that allowed for endless possibilities and imagination.

To design the games, I used Affinity. To transfer the designs onto the wood, I either made stencils or used graphite paper. For the coloring, I used acrylic markers.

These 6 cm x 6 cm (2’36 x 2’36) oak blocks were custom made. Naturally, the wood had to be primed first and sealed later, so there were a few steps involved before the blocks were ready.

What I liked most was that the games were simple in form, but flexible in practice. Each one had a very basic version, but also enough room to expand later, depending on how much challenge or variety felt right.

I filmed part of the process as I was making them, so I’m leaving the video below in case you’d like to see how the games were chosen and how the designs ended up on the blocks.

And that was only the making part. The next step was writing the instructions – in Croatian, naturally – and coming up with a name I was probably far too pleased with.