Scrabble Tile Art Magnets


I have to start off this post with some sad news, because it was that news that inspired this week's craft project. My 94 year old grandma passed away. In her later years, she took up drawing and painting and really enjoyed it, so I wanted to do a craft that used some of her artwork. This ended up being quite challenging. Our scanner that does a good job with documents and and an ok job with photos, did a terrible job with her colored pencil drawings. They came out completely washed out and overexposed. So I took some photos of the art, which turned out ok, so onward with the project. I used Word to shrink them down to 3/4 of an inch (the size of scrabble tiles) and printed them out onto some matte photo paper. 


I cut the little pictures of art out and mod podged them onto the blank side of the Scrabble tiles.


After they were dry, I used an old emery board to remove any excess paper or glue along the edges.


Then I put a layer of Diamond Glaze onto the tiles. I was in a hurry to complete this project before we got in a car to drive two states away, so I did a sloppy job and ended up having to fix it with a second layer of glue. 

Be sure to apply the glue to the edge of the tile carefully and then fill in the center. Try not to pick up the nozzle from the glue stream--that creates bubbles which are a pain to remove. I have used Paper Glaze to cover scrabble tiles in another project and that was a bit easier to work with. The glue was thinner and less likely to bubble. Of course that meant you needed to put 2 or 3 coats on to get a nice clear glaze over the top, whereas with the diamond glaze 1-2 coats would work.


After the glue dried to a clear finish, I decided that these would work the best as magnets--I had hoped to turn them into necklaces, but they didn't turn out as clear or as vibrant as I would have liked. But they will look really cute on my fridge and remind me of Grandma every day.

I used more of my tiny neodymium magnets and some E6000 glue to attach them. Just be careful to place your tiles far apart when you're gluing these magnets as they are very attracted to each other and will want to come flying out of the glue if they are too close to each other. Happy crafting!


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