Dare to DIY... Dare to Give Homemade Gifts

It's week 4/6 of Kim's Dare to DIY blog party! This week she is daring us to give homemade gifts. I never know how to feel about giving homemade gifts. I LOVE receiving homemade things, but I always feel like the things I make aren't good enough or exciting enough to give.  I display my crafts here in our house, but I start to feel self conscious when I give them away as a gift.

Anywho, taking some inspiration from Pinterest, I decided to make coasters with Scrabble tiles. I knew I wanted to make these for awhile. My BFF and I have played Scrabble together forever. In high school we would play Scrabble after school, on the weekends basically all the time. That probably makes us sound like nerds. Maybe we were, but we were happy :)

The hardest part of making these was actually finding the Scrabble tiles. I looked for about two months in all of the thrift stores/Goodwill's around me pretty regularly. I thought I found a set once, but when I got up to the register to buy it, I opened it and there weren't any tiles in the box! I ended up getting a set from my mom, and I bought some tiles on ebay as well. You can also order some from Hasboro directly, but it takes like 6 weeks and by the time I thought to look it up, it would have been too late.

The Supplies
Scrabble tiles
Glue gun
Sheets of cork
A box knife






Each coaster is made up of 4- 4 letter words. (or a 3 letter word and a blank). Figure out the words you want to use ahead of time, and lay them out. If you only have one set of tiles, it might get a little frustrating because you only have a limited amount of letters. Since I was pulling from two sets, it made it a bit easier.



I cannot figure out how to rotate this picture! So frustrating!


After you figure out your sets of words, line up the first letter in the corner of a sheet of cork. It's really important that your first tile is lined up, otherwise the rest will be crooked too.

** I noticed a couple tiles were not the same size as others. For example one of the I tiles was shorter. There are plenty of I's in a Scrabble game so it was easy to swap out.***

Then glue all the tiles down, and cut the cork with a box knife.

I made 4 total. These two are "drink" themed. I made one with her name, her hubby's name, their dog's name (all four letters each!) and "BABY" since her daughter is 6 letters. I also made one with their daughter's name (on two lines) and her birthday "JUNE ONE"

I think they turned out cute, and because of our love for Scrabble, it worked for us.

Do you give homemade gifts? Do you ever feel self conscious about it?