How to Make Your Own Checkers Game

Make your own checkers game using milk bottle lids and fabric. This simple inexpensive to create game makes a great present or functional art project. Children as young as second grade can be taught to make their own checkers games. Here is what you need to do.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 12 milk bottle lids in one color
• 12 milk bottle lids in a second color
• 2 different colored pieces of felt that are each 16 inches square
• 1 piece of stiff cardboard that is 2 inches by 2 inches
• Fabric glue
• Ruler
• Scissors

1. Collect two sets of milk bottle lids so that you have 12 lids in each of two colors. Choose the fabric so that it will complement the colors of the milk bottle lids.

2. Use the cardboard square as a stencil to help you to draw lines (ballpoint pen will work on felt) to mark one of the 16-inch square pieces of felt into 32 individual squares. Each square will be 2 inches high and 2 inches wide. It will use up half of the piece of material.

3. Cut out each of these 2 inch squares. Be careful to cut the corners so that they are 90-degree angles. There is plenty of additional fabric that you can use in the event that you make a cutting error.

4. Place the other piece of felt on a table. This fabric will become the checker board. You will alternate one square of the cut felt with a square of this fabric all the way across the board so that the grid will be produced with both colors. Glue one square of the cut fabric to fit exactly in the upper left corner of the large piece of felt. Use the 2-inch square of stiff cardboard as a marker. Place it so that the top of the cardboard aligns with the top of the board and the left side is exactly touching the first glued square. Alternate a glued square and then an open square all the way across the board. There will be 4 glued squares in each row and 4 open squares in each row. Use the cardboard square to measure where to put the second row. Place the top edge of the cardboard against the bottom edge of the first glued square. Place the left side of the cardboard square against the left edge of the board. Glue the next square so that it meets the right edge of the cardboard and fits directly underneath the first open square. Keep alternating glued and open squares until there are 8 rows of 8 spaces. The glued squares will be arranged on one set of parallel diagonals and the open squares will be arranged on another set of parallel diagonals.

5. Place the milk bottle caps on the board as in a standard checkers game and play. The fabric board can be rolled up and tied with a string for storage.