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When we redecorated our living room we painted one wall a teal green. We were looking for a striking addition that would create a feature wall. I had seen some interior design pictures that included giant scrabble tiles in various designs so decided that would make a statement.
Step one: Plan your wall
The first task before you get anywhere near making your tiles is to work out on paper your design. You will need to try and interlock names or words to get the best visual effect. If you are struggling to get the names to interlock you may need to add additional words to help. Additional words that are quite popular to use are:
- Love
- Home
- Family
- Forever
- Your Family Surname
Once you have worked out the design you will be able to count how many tiles you will actually need.
Step two: source your wood
There are many designs however I wanted to try and stick to the traditional style of scrabble tiles. To start you will need to source some planed timber. I chose timber that was 18cm wide and 2cm thick. I found it cheaper to buy the longest plank that was available. Once you have got your planks home you can start preparing them. You will need to measure out your tiles along the plank. You will want your tiles to be square, my plank was 18cm wide so I marked along the plank at 18cm intervals.
Step three: cut your Scrabble tiles
Next cut the plank into 18cm blocks, I did this with a circular saw so managed it single handed fairly quickly. You can obviously use a regular saw although this would be more time and labour intensive.
Step four: file the cut edges
The next stage is the most boring and tedious part of the whole process. Use a file to sand the edges of the blocks to smooth the cut edges. This is quite a lengthy part of the process and will probably need to be undertaken in several sittings as you will become very bored trust me.
Step five: round the edges
I was informed by my husband that the tiles then required a rounded edge. By this point I had lost interest in the blocks after filing them all. Luckily he stepped in and used my engraving tool to round the edges and give a more professional finish to the tiles.
Step six: Scrabble Letters
Finally the part of the process that is most interesting and doesn’t require any level of woodworking skills. I use vinyl for quite a few of my products so had some lying around that could be used. Although a similar effect could be created using a printed stencil and black paint. I used my Silhouette Portrait cutting machine to cut the letters out of the vinyl. I used the following for the tiles:
- Letters – Font: Franklin Gothic Book Font Size: 288pt
- Numbers Font: Arial Font Size: 72pt
Place the letters and numbers on the tiles with the letters slightly off centre to leave room for the numbers in the bottom right corner.
Step seven: Seal tiles
Once completed the tiles were all coated in layer of Mod Podge to seal them and to ensure the vinyl letters don’t peel in the future. The wood tends to soak up the mod podge so you may require two or three layers to give an even coverage.
Your tiles can now be stuck to the wall in your pre-planned layout. They look amazing when hung up and make a great addition to your interior. They look great just by themselves or some people do add a few additional pieces to the wall. Ideas I have seen include Surname monogram pictures or hanging hearts.
If you liked this how to I have a few others available on my blog including making your own phone case by following this link https://claireyatfairycrafters.com/diy-phone-case-project-make-your
I also have a blog post on how to make decoupage letters which are another great decor addition
Crafty interiors: decoupage letters a how to
I would love to see how your Giant Scrabble tiles turned out or if you have got creative and added extras to your feature wall. Let me know if you enjoyed this how to guide and let me know if there are any other how to guides that you would like to see. Good luck with your feature walls!
