We ended up trying the lollipop method with wooden dowels. We would never suggest that to anyone again. Unfortunately, many of the sticks broke. We ended up not using any method of hanging them and just putting a wet side face down, it worked well enough.
Other people staining got stain on our work and the stain didn't take so well to some of the boards. We took care of both of these problems by staining them a second time.
Polyurethaning- For the poly we used more or less the same steps as staining. However, we were able to cut metal rods rather than wooden ones. The extra sturdiness allowed this part of the project to work!
Joshua wipes off the excess stain with cheese cloth -->
(Below) Our more or less finished product (just one coat of poly and 8 blocks to stain!)
