DIY: How To Up-cycle A Placemat Into A Travel Game!

This week I wanted to share a tutorial that was pretty, practical, functional and would be very welcome in Vivid HQ. With trips planned ahead I wanted to make something that would provide some entertainment too... That's quite a lot of wants for one diy! Being a fan of board games and road trips I decided to create a diy which combined the two. The best part is that this little project makes an excellent placemat at the dinner table as well! I don't think you can get more out of one little make and do. 

Itching to make a set of your own? Lets go...

This is a lovely way to up-cycle your placemats, but if you dont have any of those and are still keen on making your own travel games, you can still do it with a dish towel :) I wanted to use these as they are easy to take care of and I love the look of board games. The best part is they roll up and are easy to pack & cary. Brilliant!

For this diy we will also be creating a stencil so you will need some thick card or a sheet of plastic that you can cut through easily to make a template. You could also do it by making stamps, but painting the material will ensure it takes to the material better.

First up you will need to draw round your inner and outer board boxes. Using paper, position two rectangles onto your placemat with a reasonable sized gap between them. Draw around them in pencil using a ruler to keep you straight.

A backgammon board has 24 of those triangles on it in total. Thats 12 to each box! To work out how to make the right size of triangles take the paper, cut it in half and create a concertina with 6 folds in it.  This will give you your length and depth. Next, on the top one of the of the folds, measure to find out where the middle is. Then draw from the two bottom corners to meet it and make a triangle as shown in green. Easy!

If you cut them all out and placed them on the mat they would look like this. It's all coming together brilliantly! Use one of your lovely paper triangles to measure out and create your new stencil. This may be a little fidgety, but you will only need templates. Use one to paint and the other to measure out the correct spacing...

 As you can see, we have gone with green and blue! It's easiest to focus on one colour at a time; do all of your 'green' triangles first, using the clean template to measure where the alternative coloured triangles will go. Once you have all 12 of those painted in, you can start on the 'blue' triangles. If you are anxious about your wet paint getting smudged, allow it to dry for a few hours between colours (or manically hair dry!)

When you're done with your triangles, all you need to do is draw in the outlines of your board. You can paint this in with fabric paint or a fabric pen. If you are feeling particularly lazy you may even get away with a sharpie...

Once you have waited for your master piece to dry, you'll need to iron it to fix the fabric paint. Then let the fun begin! The best thing about this tutorial is the edible checkers :D Perfect for taking on your road trip, these milk and white chocolate buttons are the ultimate in travel game accessories. You can play the game and the winner gets to munch all the pieces. They're light, practical and remarkably tasty! Each player will need 15 checkers. You can eat all the rest :)

Then all you need to do is line them up, roll the dice and enjoy!

*Ta*Da*

Looks great, right? I can honestly tell you that this little diy really is fun for all the family. Perfectly packable and light weight, it will take the edge off long journeys and provide some excellent sweet treats for the players. Who doesn't want to play this game?!

Not to mention you now have some beautiful new placemats for the dinner table!

Why not make a set for everyone? You could create a cracking checkers board or how abouts some naughts and crosses? Throw in some chewy sweetys and you could make snakes and ladders! The possibilities are endless and they will make some great conversational pieces for dinner - if you're not playing with them that is! 

Not sure which you prefer? Well you can always make a game for each side of your placemats too. Hours of fun!

Fancy a game anyone? Hee hee! 

We'd love to hear what you think and see some of your creations :D

Enjoy!