Apply finish to scrap piece of wood. I tried a dark walnut stain (on the turquoise block), a grey stain (on the tall grey and white block), and watered down craft paint (to allow grain to show through) on the yellow block. You decide which is your favorite or leave the wood bare!
After finish is applied to front, flip the block over and drill a hole (same size as your dowel) near the bottom. I centered my ½" hole 1 ¼" up from the bottom of the block (in the center of the bottom edge). Make sure you don't drill your hole all the way through to the front.
Make sure dowel fits, then saw dowel to desired length. The shorter the dowel, the more 'tilt' your block will have. I cut mine in varying lengths, but the average was around 5" long. My advise ... start longer, and cut down from there if needed. Sand the cut edges.
Insert the dowel rods into the back of the frame. You just created your ... dowel rod 'stands'. You can remove the dowel to finish the front of your block.
Cut scrapbook paper to the exact size of your block. You will sand edges after the mod podge dries, so if the edges don't match exactly, you should be fine.
Apply a GENEROUS amount of mod podge to front of block. It will dry clear ... so don't be stingy here!!
Press scrapbook paper over top of block and smooth into place. Make sure all edges and corners and sticking down. If you need to place something flat on top of your paper and block to keep the edges down, do that now.
Wait 10-15 minutes, then apply a layer of mod podge on top of paper and around edges. Make sure the edges get covered completely. Apply another 1 or 2 coats of Mod Podge over paper, allowing about 30 minutes for each coat to dry in between.
Once mod podge is completely dry (I recommend leaving it over night), sand the front edges of your frame. You could use an electric sander here, or some elbow grease and a hand sander (as in my case). The goal here is to make the paper look like it's fused right into the wood (all one piece). You can see how the edges of my frames have been sanded down to reveal the bare wood through the finish. This is the look I was going for.
Apply clips to top of block (see options below), stick dowel into back of block, add a cute picture (or fun quote???) and display!