Handmade Gifts For Scrabble Lovers

My family takes Scrabble very seriously. We even have a championship belt which gets passed between family members as they dominate Scrabble games. See the photos below for proof. ;)

I knew I wanted to make Scrabble themed Christmas gifts for both my Dad and my brother. I had seen a few examples of pillows which were made to look like giant scrabble tiles while browsing both Etsy and Pinterest. As the holidays approached, it dawned on me as being the perfect thing to make for my brother!

I used two 18″ pillow forms, and created envelope slipcases for them using a Home Ec e-course tutorial which I’ve used successfully before. For the front of the pillow slipcases, I chose a basic light tan flannel, to imitate the color of actual Scrabble tiles. I chose a muted plaid flannel for the back, to give the pillows a little more interest.

I took a few tips from this Scrabble pillow tutorial, which taught me how to create a template for the letters and numbers, and recommended using iron-on webbing to secure the letters and numbers before sewing. I chose to use fleece for the letter and number details because it does not fray. The iron-on webbing was perfect for keeping the fleece from curling as I sewed the tight curves around the letters and numbers!

I was psyched with the turnout, and my brother’s reaction when unwrapping his gift was the best. Have I told you before how much I love giving handmade gifts? :)

For my Dad’s Scrabble themed gift, I wanted to make something both fun and practical. I ended up using this tutorial to create Scrabble tile coasters.

My initial plan was to find a Scrabble game at a thrift store, and repurpose its tiles for these coasters. Sadly, I had no luck finding a Scrabble game throughout a month’s worth of thrifting trips. I needed 100 letter tiles (a complete set) to make these coasters – the chances of me thrifting a game which still had a complete set would have been pretty slim anyways. I ended up purchasing a set of Scrabble tiles on Etsy.

I used carpenter’s glue to adhere the tiles to a piece of cork. Once dry, I cut the cork pieces to size and coated the surface with two layers of Mod Podge, which helped to fill in the cracks between the letters. I used an acrylic spray to seal the coasters, and give them a bit of extra gloss.

I chose to place the Scrabble tiles in a random order rather than spell anything out. My husband pointed out that these coasters can double as a word finder game, to see which words you can spell using the letters on a single coaster. Being the smarty pants he is, he found the word lieutenant on one of them!

These Scrabble themed gifts were two of my favorite handmade Christmas gifts I made this year. I plan on sharing a handful of my other projects over the next week or so – stay tuned!