Triple Word Score

You know that feeling you get when you find THE perfect gift for someone? Something that you just know will take the cake? That's what happened with my mom's Christmas gift this year.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon this Scrabble Art idea posted on Crafster.org and I immediately knew that I had to recreate my own version for my mother.

This gift was perfect on so many levels: 1) She's a crafter and appreciates a great handmade gift; 2) she is a sucker for anything related to family history; and 3) she is a kick-ass Scrabble player. What could be better than a gift that combines three of her loves?

So I sat down with a piece of paper and figured out how many sets of letters I would need in order to spell all the names. I went with just my mom, dad, brother, sister, the four grandchildren, and myself. I did not include "in laws" because...well, they aren't blood related and we're all pretty sure one of them probably isn't permanent. Sounds awful, but hey...it's life.

I figured out that I would need two sets of letters, and the day after Thanksgiving I picked two Scrabble games at Target for $6 each. But they redid the board, and now it's these crazy purple, orange, and red colors....not anything that would fit with my mom's decor. So I hit ebay and found the older style board for $2.50 with $3 shipping. While I was on ebay, I also found that there are all kinds of sets of Scrabble tiles for sale, so that would be another resource for getting any extra letters you need for this project.

My parents' last name is in the wooden letter rack at the bottom. It took me about an hour to layout and connect all the names in a configuration that looked good on the board.

In the original picture on Crafster, they used a purchased, framed cork board to mount the Scrabble board. I couldn't find anything, so I had my husband build me a frame and cut me a piece of wood to the size I needed. Then I just stained everything in a color that I thought would look good in my mom's house. The entire thing is held together by massive amounts of hot glue.

When she opened it, she cried. And then my brother and sister promptly chimed in and told me that I suck and thanks for showing them up. I told them they just need to step up their game next year....