How To Make a Scrabble Board

Scrabble is a crossword board game that has been around for decades. It requires players to put tiles with letters on them on a grid to form words. If you have a set of tiles from an old game, or you want to make your own tiles, you can save some money by making your own Scrabble board instead of buying one. Be aware that you cannot sell boards you make with the Scrabble logo, since it is a copyrighted name.

Draw a grid that has 15 rows and 15 columns on your piece of wood or cardboard with your black permanent marker. Make sure each square is the same size as your Scrabble tiles, not any larger. Count eight squares over and eight squares down to find the center box. Draw a large star in the middle of it. This is your starting square. The first player has to put one letter of his word here to begin the game.

Put in the triple letter score spots. Color the top left square with the red marker. Do the same for the middle space in the top row and for the top right corner. Repeat all three actions for the bottom row.

Go back to the top left corner. Move down one square and to the right one square. Color this square pink. From there move down one square and to the right one square and color the square pink. Always starting from the last pink square, repeat the actions two more times, so that you have a diagonal of pink squares directed toward the center star. Go to the top right corner. Move down one square and to the left one square. Color this square pink. Repeat three times. Use the same pattern to create pink diagonal lines radiating from the bottom left and bottom right corners. These are the double word score spots.

Use the fact that the Scrabble board is symmetrical to assist you with placing the rest of the bonus spots. Any action you take on the left side of the board, make the right side its mirror image. Put in the double letter score spots by counting in four places in the top row and coloring this spot light blue. Go down two rows and count in seven spots from the edge. Color. Go down another row and color the first spot. Count in eight spots from the edge. Color. Go down three rows. Color spots three and seven. In the next row down, color spot four. In the next row down, color spots three and seven. Go down three rows. Color spots one and eight. Go down one row. Color spot seven. Go down two rows. Color spot four. Repeat for right side.

Make the triple letter score spots dark blue. In row two, color spot six. In row six, color spots two and six. In row 10, color spots two and six. In row 14, color spot six. Repeat for right side. Leave the leftover spots blank or color them brown if you wish. These are the “regular” spots where letters are worth face value, barring any word score bonuses.