Scrabble Tile Coasters

I've been wanting to make these Scrabble tile coasters for a long time!  I finally had a little bit of free time to figure out the words I wanted to use so here's what I came up with.  They aren't "drink" related like other ones I've seen ... instead, they are simple four-letter words that I liked to describe my house and life.

I made four of these for us to use around the house.

So cute!

Here I have all of the ones I was going to make laid out, ready to be assembled.

Here's my little tutorial for making these coasters.

Using corkboard as your base, I simply placed the tiles on it and drew a line to indicate where to cut.

With your corkboard on a cutting mat, take a straight-edge blade and cut along the line.

Once cut into a slightly-off square (Scrabble tiles are NOT square), I took a piece of finer sand paper and sanded the edges to get off all the little pieces hanging off of it.  Be gentle or you'll take off a big chunk!

Once the corkboard is ready, you simply hot glue the tiles into place.  As you can see, you will not get a perfectly-aligned creation unless you spend countless hours making sure you glue each piece individually and with a ruler!  Besides, the imperfection of crafting is the perfection in it!

After the tiles are all glue on one side, I put hot glue all over the back and adhered it to black felt.  This is for tiles that you would place on glass tables or other scratchable items or just for a finished look.

Here you can see the three layers are done ... but the tiles need one last little bit of love!

A quick coating of Mod Podge does the trick.  This is to fill in the spaces between the tiles as well as giving it a finish that helps with beverages that "sweat."

The finished product ... how cute are these?!!!

And now here's some more ideas for your tiles!

So ... Scott is an electrician and we have our own company called Westberg Electric.  How ironic is it that it is EXACTLY 16 letters ... enough to make a Scrabble Tile coaster JUST for him ... love it!  We also made another coordinating one for an employee who might be having a drink with him after a long work week, and another one for another buddy who might show up for a cold one (Your Beer Goes Here - gotta love it!)

I didn't glue the following tiles together, but just arranged them so you could see some other ones you could make:

How about a cute coaster for a wine-loving friend?  For your friend's birthday, give this, along with a bottle of wine, and it's a perfect gift!

Here's one for you to set your morning cup of coffee on while you do your makeup in the bathroom!

And how about a five-tile coaster?  Just a little bigger with the same amount of fun!

And you could always use the words I came up with to make your own little set for your house.  There are many other words you could use (first names, last names, etc.) that would work too.  Personalizing it (like I did for Scott's) is a great way to make something as a gift!

Wanna know where you can find a HUGE list of four letter words ... right here!  It's a list actually used for Scrabble Australia but it will give you some great ideas if you have the patience to go through it.

Enjoy making your own Scrabble tile coasters and let me know if you do, I'd love to see your creations!