A pair of Swedish designers have created a set of multi-faceted wooden building blocks that are coloured with fruit and vegetable dyes (+ slideshow).

Snego was created by Katarina Hornwall and Gabriella Rubin while the duo were studying their masters at Lund University School of Industrial Design in Sweden.

All of the gem-like wooden pieces are unique, and are designed so that each of their flat surfaces allow them to be stacked on top of other Snego blocks.

The pieces can be balanced to form precarious-looking towers that look like cairns ? rural path markers built from stacks of stones.

The bricks are made from birch, pine and oak salvaged from the university's workshops, and have been coloured using natural dyes.
The pair soaked the bricks in blueberry, red cabbage, beetroot, lingonberry, wine and red onion peel to change the colour of the wood.
"We wanted to add some colour to the blocks, and got inspired by the old craft of dying textiles with natural ingredients," Rubin told Dezeen. "We think it is important to keep the colours natural as it works well the overall idea and concept."

By adapting the acidity of the dye, the pair also achieved different shades of colour using the same ingredient. The pieces were then finished in beeswax and olive oil to set the hue.

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