Seattle Rubik's Cube Favors

Rubik's Cube Favors

As with all of my DIY projects, I went through what seems like a million ideas before finally having that "ah ha!" moment.  I was reading through posts here and came across this Bee's post and knew this was for us.  I showed Mr. Ball and he agreed wholeheartedly, even helping me find the pictures for each side.  We purchased a real Rubik's Cube from Toy R Us and did our test favor.  Below are the pictures of the test favor - we are making a few changes for the final version but overall we are over the moon with how it turned out.

We finished the test favor and Mr. Ball immediately challenged me to mix it up to try and solve it.  This was the next day after he spent some very quality time twisting and turning the puzzle.  He was slightly concerned that we would never see the pictures whole again.  Here he is with a solved, extra cool Rubik's Cube!


Okay, so now on to the how to accomplish this project!



The Rubik's Cube site has a PDF based template you can download for free to create the stickers.  I started with this but immediately converted it into a Photoshop template as I prefer working with images there.  I re-sized and cropped 6 images to fit the sticker template - including one with our names and wedding date.  From there I exported the image to a JPEG format which I opened in Photoshop as well.  I printed the image onto a full sheet of inkjet compatible label paper using the 'Fit to Width' option to make sure it printed on the entire page.

Now came the time consuming part - cutting and pasting.  I started out using the paper cutter but soon discovered it was not the right tool for the job.  I moved to using scissors to finish up with the test.  For the real deal, we are going to use our cutting mat and an X-Acto knife to make more perfect cuts and lines.  You will see in some of the pictures that a few of the stickers are cut a little bit off - this is why.

Once each picture was cut into 9 pieces I immediately stuck it on the cube.  There were two reasons for this - one because I really wanted to see how it was going to turn out and, more importantly, I didn't want the images to get mixed up.  I absolutely loved the results from the very first picture to the last.  I did change the template for the pooch picture - hated the words once I saw how they ended up on the cube - otherwise this is what they will look like. 

We are also going to use the laminate over the labels, as suggested by the Rubik's Cube site, to protect the stickers a bit more.  They held up pretty well throughout the solving phase however I think it will look a bit more "professional" and last longer with laminated stickers.

 

 
 
Once I finished up with the test cube and knew this was what we were going to use, I immediately started contemplating providing a quick solution template with each.  The actual cube comes with a 7-step solution and we thought it would be handy so people could get the cube back to starting position quickly if they wanted to.  Since we are using imitation cubes (*much cheaper*), I knew I had to create something.   Here is the result and I'm pretty pleased with it as well.  We are going to find some better paper and print at a higher quality but I think it accomplishes the task rather nicely!

This might be my favorite DIY project!  After I make 40 more of these guys I might feel differently however it is one of the coolest ideas I have run across.  It is also a great way to share our love of games with everyone without having a game-themed wedding.

Find the templates here:
Rubik's Cube Sticker Photoshop Template
Rubik's Cube Solution Booklet Publisher Template