How to Make Scrabble Wall Art like a Boss

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Who loves the Scrabble Letter wall art that my friend Kate made me??? Well, she was kind enough to write a post about her adventure and will show you how to make scrabble wall art LIKE A BOSS!

Without further ado…..here is KATE!

When Lyn asks me to do something…I just can’t say no!  So, here I am writing about how I made the scrabble letters when I should be studying Biochemistry.  Oh the sacrifice I am making for her…NOT!!  I was so excited to take on this project (the scrabble letters not the writing, I’ve been writing papers like a madwoman for school) and could not wait to get started on it!

Supplies:

• Mini Circular saw
• 5×8 piece of wood (like pine)
• Stain
• Sanding Block
• Triangle
• Cricut
• Vinyl

I have been painting signs for several years now and find it to be very relaxing and therapeutic.  In the past, I had to buy pre-cut wood pieces because I didn’t have a saw to make my own. Well, I had been bothering my boyfriend to get me  a saw for a while. He just didn’t bite on the idea, he was probably afraid I’d lose a finger or just start randomly cutting stuff, but I finally wore him down.  Score one for the redhead!!  He got me the Rockwell Mini Circular saw. I was itching to use it so when Lyn texted me a picture of the scrabble letters and asked if I could do it. I finally had my chance.  

Picking the wood

We discussed sizes for scrabble tiles and both thought that 4” would be perfect.  Then my father relayed to me the hard truth about lumber measurements. 

Did you know that when lumber is measured 4” in width that it is actually 3.5”?!

Needless to say, we had some very funny “a man came up with that measuring system jokes” and decided to go with 4.5” which meant lumber labeled 5” in width.

Off to Home Depot I went to find a 5”x 8’ piece of pine.  When I was selecting the lumber I paid close attention to the knots in the wood, I wanted to make sure that there weren’t holes or any large abnormalities. 

Stain

While I was at Home Depot, I found some stain with a nice rich color.  I chose Varathane Dark Walnut and loved the way it ended up looking.

When I got home my first step was staining the board. Staining prior to making the cuts made it much easier than having to stain a bunch of individual pieces. 

I didn’t bother with sanding because the wood was pretty smooth already.  Wearing gloves (you do not want stain all over your hands) I used a foam brush and put a heavy coat of stain on. Then let it sit for 5 minutes and wiped off the excess stain with a lint free cloth on both sides. 

One coat looked good but, I wanted it to be a little darker, so I repeated this process and allowed the wood to dry overnight.

Cutting

The next morning was like waking up on Christmas morning, I was so excited to play with my new toy.  I probably shouldn’t refer to power tools as toys, but I’ve never been overly big on correctness. 

So, I would like to be able to say that I owned this process but yeah…I botched the first board…epic fail.  What had happened was – there is a guide that can be attached to the saw so that you can save time measuring every single cut and it’s supposed to help you cut straight.  LIES…all LIES.  EVERY single piece was crooked. 

Back to Home Depot I went this time purchasing a triangle along with my fresh piece of pine.

I did the whole staining process again and waited for my next shot at using the saw.  I carefully measured 4.5” (so that I’d get a perfect square piece) and this time used my triangle as a guide. 

The result was PERFECTLY square cut pieces of wood.  After all my scrabble tiles were cut, I sanded the cut sides using a sanding block and stained those edges. 

I also added a little extra stain on the edges of the front of each tile so that there would be a little bit of depth on each tile.  I know, I’m extra and I won’t apologize for it!

Letters

Lastly, was the letter portion on each tile.  Originally I going to hand paint each letter, but decided against it. Instead, I decided on using my Cricut Air Explore 2.  My boyfriend’s mother got it for me for Christmas and I LOVE the thing! 

I chose a font and figured out the points on each letter that was needed to spell out all of Lyn’s family’s names. 

I had 2 extra tiles from the 8’ piece of wood and decided to throw in a heart and a dog silhouette as well. 

After my machine cut out all of my vinyl letters, I centered them on the wooden tiles and smoothed them down.

How to hang them

I did not put any hooks on the back of the tiles, nor did I drill any holes. Figuring that would be a whole lot of holes to put in the wall and they wouldn’t be flush against the wall if I had attached hanging hooks. 

I was thinking Lyn could use command strips, and fortunately great minds think alike because she thought the same.

Thanks Lyn for having the faith in me to do this project for you, I am flattered and love the way you utilized them in your decor! 

With that being said, if any of you readers need any signs made…pick me!  All I need is a picture of what you want and I will make it happen.  Inquiries can be emailed to me at KateRichardsRN@gmail.com.   

Hope you had as much fun laughing at my goof-ups as I did making this project.       

Stay Crafty!

Kate