Scrabble Coaster DIY Tutorial

Hello friends!

Today I finally finished a craft I had started in October 2011. Yes, it has been that long since I picked up the scrabble pieces and bought my materials. Unfortunately, life got in the way (as it seems to do with me), and my little DIY project got stuffed in a Gap bag at the back of my coat closest. Thanks to summer break, the project got done!

Here's what you'll need:
-Scrabble pieces
-Cork-board
-Sand paper
-Wood Stain
-Gorilla Glue
-Ruler & Scissors & Pen/pencil
-Hard surface to work on

First, I organized my letters to say words that I loved. I chose: Love, Laugh, Faith, Hope, Trust, and Peace. Since I still had tons of extra letters, I decided to also use my family members. The coasters are 5x5, so I couldn't use mine and my brother's full names. I used our childhood (and adult still haha) nicknames. Mine was (and still is) "Cake," and Zach's is "Boo." Figuring out how I wanted to arrange the letters wasn't difficult, but did take a little bit of time: about 30 mins.

I wanted my specific words to stand out, so I decided to stain them a darker color. However, there is already laminate coating on the Scrabble tiles, so they need to be sanded down.

I purchased sand paper at Home Depot, cut it into strips so it was easier to manage, and got to work! I just sanded down the top and sides, since the bottom won't be visible anyways. This didn't take very long at all.

After sanding it down, I stained them! I purchased a Wood Stain pen at Home Depot (only $5). It's kind of like a sharpie, which is perfect because otherwise you have to buy a whole bottle of stain and I obviously don't need that much for this project.

The stain is really dark at first, but as it dries, it starts to lighten up a lot.

Yeah, definitely too dark! But I promise, it lightens! (Oh, and I got the color Red Oak. I kind of wish I got a bit of a lighter color, but I'm happy with this one overall).

Waiting for some tiles to dry...still sanding others:

Once some were dry, I started actually making the coasters! I measured out how big I needed the coasters to be. Like I said, I did 5x5 (measured in scrabble tiles). The cork board was really easy to cut with just regular scissors.

I applied the tiles with Gorilla Glue because, let's face it, that is definitely the strongest glue out there! Here's my little work station...some of the coasters already done:

And voila! Here is the finished product! (Once again)

I'm thinking of staining the lighter tiles to be a little darker as well (just a shade or two). But I'm going to test them out for a couple weeks first and see if I get used to them. Thanks, Pinterest! (And summer break)   :)

xoxo