If you’re an avid lover of fresh air and outside fun, staying inside and playing board games might not sound like your idea of a fun afternoon! Luckily, there is a solution! This awesome DIY picnic blanket checkerboard combines your love of being outdoors with the simple joy of playing fun games! You won’t need a lot of materials, as you may already have most of these on hand! You and your picnic guests will love this awesome blanket! Here’s how to make one for yourself!
What You’ll Need:
- An old single-colored picnic blanket or flat bed sheet
- Kitchen sponge
- Paint in any color of your choosing (make sure it will work on fabrics)
- Ruler or tape measure
- Game pieces (can be anything you can think of!)
Directions:
- Cut your sponge in half. Each half should be a square! If not, trim off more sponge until it is a perfect square.
- Using your tape measure or ruler, measure a side of your square.
- Using a pencil or fabric pen, measure out a large square in the center of your blanket. This square should measure eight times the length and eight times the height of your sponge square.
- If you’d like, you can draw the complete grid for a guideline. If not, it’s okay to wing it too!
- Pour some paint on a paper plate or in a bowl. Dip your sponge into the paint and starting in a corner, press down to make a square. Use a checkerboard for reference if you need to!
- Continue stamping your squares to achieve a checkerboard pattern until every other square has been filled in.
- Add a decorative border around your checkerboard if you’d like (optional).
- Let your board dry, then enjoy! You can use any sort of items for game pieces. If you have extra checkers, that’s perfect! But you can use anything from stones, shells, pieces of fabric, or anything else! Just make sure to use different colors, or mark them in some way to tell whose pieces are whose! If you’re more of a chess person, grab your pieces from another set and bring them along!
This DIY picnic blanket checkerboard was almost as much fun to make as it is to play with! Don’t be afraid to try out other materials like fabric pens instead of paint and sponges, and try out a new color to make a fun checkerboard just the way you want it! Whether you’re a checkers or chess aficionado or just want to have fun on your picnics, this checkerboard blanket is perfect! What fun items would you use as checkers pieces? Comment to share your creative ideas!
