Craftiness is Next to Godliness: Scrabble Headboard

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Post: Craftiness is Next to Godliness: Scrabble Headboard


Craftiness is Next to Godliness:

Scrabble Headboard


I don’t have a headboard, but I’d love to have one. Problem is: all the ones I like are too expensive and all the ones I can afford kind of suck. Fortunately, I can make one on my own and so can you.




A few days ago, I found a great and simple tutorial for making your own upholstered headboard at a website called Chez Larsson. It looks great in her home, but for my taste, I’d love to embellish it a little. Enter Scrabble lettering.

Probably the hardest thing about making your Scrabble headboard will be picking which word you want to put on it. You could “monogram” it with your name, pick your favorite word and sleep under it every night, or label it with something like “bed” or “sleep.” Once you’ve figured out what word you want, it’s smooth sailing from there.



You need:
-a piece of wood about five inches wider than your bed and as tall as you want it to be. If you buy the wood at a home improvement store, you can probably get it cut to the right size by the employees there.
-several layers of cotton batting to pad it
-a piece of fabric as large as the square with a few inches allowance on each side to allow you to staple it. To make a plain white headboard, like the one made in Chez Larsson, I’d recommend that you use a white sheet. For a more authentic Scrabble tile look, you can sew together several lengths of wood grain fabric to make one piece of fabric that is wide enough.
-a staple gun
-iron transfer paper for your printer - one sheet for each letter you plan to have
-a computer and printer
-an iron and ironing board
-tailor’s chalk, disappearing ink pen, or a pencil

Now put it together:

1. Create your Scrabble letters in word processing software, one letter per page. I found that Arial Rounded MT Bold looks a lot like the letters on actual Scrabble tiles. Make your letter in size 500 and your number in size 150 with the subscript box checked on your font menu. Alternately, you can use a scrabble esque font. Print them using your iron transfer paper.
2. Lay your fabric out on your wooden headboard base to figure out where exactly you want the letters to go. Then mark the location of your letters with your chalk/marker/pencil. Carefully iron the fabric so that it is wrinkle free and then transfer the letters using the iron on paper per the manufacturer’s instructions.
3. From here, Chez Larsson has great pictorial instructions. Basically, you just staple the batting and fabric to your piece of wood and then lean it against the wall behind your bed.
4. If you want a little extra security, you can mount the board to the wall, but I’ve had a headboard leaned against the wall before and it worked just fine.

Sweet, Scrabble-y dreams, kids! And happy crafting.