Sum of their Stories Craft Blog

View Original

Scrabble Tile Christmas Ornament

How to make a sweet Christmas decoration from items picked up at a charity shop or thrift store.

I picked up an old scrabble set at a charity shop, I got really lucky and happened to be in there just as staff were discussing the fact that not all the tiles were in the box so it wasn’t suitable to sell. I jumped in of course and offered a few £s to take it off their hands! It was just perfect for some scrabble crafts.

I have used the old tiles for a few projects. You can see them in this scrabble quote art and some family name art I’ve shared at the end of this tutorial. I have quite a few tiles left so I played around to see if I could find any Christmassy words:

I found these little signs in a charity shop for just 50p each:

To make Christmas Scrabble Tile Ornaments you will need

How to make scrabble tile Christmas signs

Start by giving your sign a coat of gold paint (Rustoleum is my favourite but there are lots of good gold spray paints out there)

Whilst it dries cut out two pieces of Christmas scrap book paper, one just a fraction smaller than the sign and one just a little smaller than that.

Ink the edge of the papers with a brown ink pad.

Spread Mod Podge all over the back of the larger paper with a brush and stuck it onto the sign, then repeat for the smaller paper.

When that is dry, cover the whole thing in a layer of Mod Podge to seal and protect it.

Once this sealing layer of Mod Podge is dry play around with your scrabble words to fit them centrally to the sign. Attach the scrabble letters using hot glue, using just a little blob in each corner.

Ta dah!

More things to make with old scrabble tiles

These signs don’t have to be for Christmas of course, you can make a lovely name for a child’s bedroom door.

(what can go wrong) Here I tried to use balsa wood instead of a ready made sign. It worked ok except the wood I had chosen was a little bit too thin for the screw in eye hooks and the wood split a bit.

It was rescueable as I made that the back, but if you do try this, make sure your wood is at least 5mm thick.

This bedroom door sign was made in pretty much the same way as the Christmas ornaments described above. The differences here are that there is only one layer of paper, cut the same size as the wood to cover it completely. A ribbon with some beads is attached to the eye hooks to hang it up.

This picture with all our family names in a sort of scrabble arrangement was another project made with these scrabble tiles. It hangs in our kitchen next to the Coin Picture.

I do love it but it used the W's, the J and the K from the scrabble set so I couldn't do any jingle bells or winter/snow words for this Christmas project!

This scrabble tile quote picture was a gift for some special friends for their wedding.

If you can't get hold of any actual scrabble tiles for a craft project like this there are sites that you can download and print them on card. I've not tried any myself but I know there are a few about. Just google "download scrabble tiles" and I'm sure you will find something. Some craft shops sell faux scrabble tiles too.

Julie

I've had some feedback that some people are concerned that by putting Xmas here I have taken Christ out of Christmas.

The X is Chi, the Greek letter for Christ so He is still very much there and this is just a commonly used shorthand from as far back as the 16th century. It is not my intention to offend anyone, but personally I'm happy to use Xmas.

I'll be linking up at these ink parties

See this gallery in the original post