DIY: Customized Checkers

My hubby, NukeBoy, turned the big 5-0 this week. I had planned on a big Hawaiian vacation for this momentous occasion, but the arrival of our precious MonkeyBoy curtailed the trip this year. I'll take him when our off-spring is a little older to handle that kind of cross-global flight, and when we actually have money again. I LOVE staying at home with my little guy, but boy our we broke! Just keepin' it real!

In light of our new budget, I've been crafting up a storm for Father's Day and birthdays. So, the second of three posts this week is to demonstrate how I made a customized checkers set for my husband with all of our faces as the pieces. 

The first thing I did was buy a 12" x 12" piece of ceramic tile for $1 at a thrift store. From my fabric stash, I cut up 32 black squares from left over black felt that I have apparently saved from a Halloween costume I made for my "baby" cousin 15 years ago. (I guess it's good to be a hoarder, in this case!) I also cut out a 12" x 12" piece to line the back of the tile.

The Math:  8 squares across divided into 12" = 1.5" per square (black and white).  I cut the black squares just shy of 1.5" so I could cut a boarder around the board with the same black felt. I eye-balled it.



With a basic tacky glue, I glued all the black squares on the board, along with the black boarder and the black backing. I used the rotary cutter to trim any excess along the sides.

Next step was to create the checkers. I purchased 1.5" wooden craft discs at the local craft store and used that measurement to create the pictures for the game pieces. I thought it would be cute if I used the faces of our family as the checkers. In Photoshop, I cut out faces of my son, hubby, and myself, then placed it on a red or black checkered background. That was for the front; on the back I took the same pictures of us and placed a crown on our heads to create Kings.

After cutting out 72 circles (ugh!), I glued them to the faces of the discs.

And there we have it!  A personalized checkerboard perfect for family game night.

Not pictured, I went a step further and sewed a drawstring bag for the checkers, and hot glued fabric to a box to create a fancy case to hold the game.










I think it came out great, but I still would rather be in Hawai'i right now!

Yankee Doodle Dandy,
–TYG