How To Make Wooden Checkers

DIY tree branch checkers Y'all always need more checkers. I mean, surely information technology's non just me who sits down to a game with my kid only to discover that at least half of our game pieces have vanished. Seriously, tell me that happens to everyone.

Fortunately, checkers are dead piece of cake to DIY. For these tree branch checkers, all you demand is a fallen branch, a saw, and a fun idea for embellishment (Hint: we used liquid watercolors and Sharpies).

checkers cut from a fallen tree branch

Any tree branch will do, every bit long as the diameter of the wood slices will exist smaller than the squares on your checkerboard. For these item checkers nosotros used fir, specifically the body of the fir tree that was our Christmas tree last yr (yes, I DID relieve it from last Christmas! AND I fabricated tree blocks with the rest of the torso!). If you lot don't have trees in your g, then take a walk through your neighborhood park after a storm and salvage the Parks Department a little clean-upward work.

cut checkers from a tree branch Y'all can cut your ain tree co-operative checkers as thick as you'd like–the checkers here are very thin only considering I was worried that otherwise, I wouldn't have enough wood to make 24.

If you want to sand the pinnacle and bottom of your checkers, do it now. Sanding the checkers will allow you to varnish or otherwise seal them, so it'south a good thought.

staining tree branch checkers with liquid watercolors To stain our checkers, we used liquid watercolors equally a wood stain. Other options are acrylic paints or nighttime and calorie-free varnishes; as long as you lot can differentiate two distinct sets of twelve, there's no demand to brand your own checkers specifically red and black.

After our checkers were dry from their staining, my older daughter drew crowns on one side of each checker, using a black Sharpie for the ruddy checkers and a silver Sharpie for the blackness checkers. Another selection would be to wood burn the crowns on, or to add another embellishment, such equally stickers, to ane side to represent the crown. You lot can also embellish the checkers any other way that y'all'd like at this fourth dimension.

draw crowns on the tree branch checkers When you're finished staining and decorating the checkers, seal them to protect them from h2o, greasy fingers, and coffee spills. If you've added stickers or other paper embellishments to the checkers, employ Mod Podge or a similar varnish; if yous've only stained and drawn on them, seal them with a natural wood smoothen, such as the DIY beeswax wood smoothen that I ever use.

These bootleg checkers are a lot of fun to utilise on a regular checkerboard, but I've been thinking how much more special they would be combined with their very own homemade checkerboard, too. Stay tuned!