I received some knives as gifts and didn't have a good place to store them so I made a larger knife block.
I made almost all of these cuts on my bandsaw. I had some cedar scraps and offcuts so I made a lot of veneer strips of varying thickness and kind of glued and layered it all into place. Then I trimmed it up, used a router and roundover bit, and sanded it for awhile.
I stained it with basic minwax stain and finished with a few coats of tung oil followed by paste wax.
I don't think I'd use this approach again but I think it turned out OK anyway.
At this point its more knife than block. I think it turned out looking great. Good job!