How to Make Scrabble Wall Tiles from a Wooden Pallet

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These scrabble wall tiles made from a wooden pallet are the perfect farmhouse wood wall decor for a gallery wall, large entryway, living room, or any space!

I’ve been looking for rustic wall decor to create the perfect gallery wall for years!

I knew the kind of elements I wanted but just couldn’t seem to find the main item that would tie everything together.

Then one night as I was scrolling through Facebook I found it – large scrabble wall tiles!

I saw them and just LOVED them!  I instantly could picture them as part of our entryway wall decor framed by all the rustic farmhouse decor I already had picked out.  They would be perfect!

While buying them from an Etsy seller wasn’t really that bad of a price, with my new found love of pallets, I knew I could make them dirt cheap!

Where to find wood pallets

First things first, you’ll need to find a pallet 🙂

Believe it or not, finding free pallets really isn’t hard at all. Most garden centers, hardware stores, and even grocery stores end up with an abundance of pallets that their shipments come in on. More often than not they are happy for you to take them off of their hands and give them away for free!

Not only are they usually free, but also have the perfect rustic look for my farmhouse decor.  Wood pallets are definitely a favorite of mine!

How to Decorate a Large Wall

Decorating a large wall can be hard. You need decor large enough so it doesn’t look lost on the wall, but not too much that ends up overwhelming.

When I was deciding what to put on our large entryway wall, the idea of a gallery wall was perfect. I just couldn’t figure out where to start. As I mentioned, once I saw those scrabble tiles, it all came together!

Here’s some other farmhouse wall decor I plan to add to our display in the future in case you are looking for ideas…

Over time I will just keep adding until I have everything I want on display, but stop before it becomes “too much.”

As you can see in the photo above, our scrabble wall tiles are the focal point, or star of the show, accented by some other rustic wall decor to bring it to life.

How to Make Scrabble Wall Tiles

To make wall scrabble tiles from a wooden pallet follow these steps… 

1. Plan your scrabble design and draw it on paper – make sure you’ll have enough of each letter and number that you’ll need
2. Remove wood planks from pallet
3. Clean to remove dirt and debris, let dry
4. Cut planks into square tiles
5. Sand to smooth edges and surface if necessary
6. Apply letter and number vinyl decals
7. Hang in the configuration chosen

Materials needed to make wall scrabble tiles

• Wooden pallet
• Sandpaper
• Large letter vinyl decals
• Small number vinyl decals
• Picture frame hangers
• Picture hanging nails

Tools needed

• Hand saw, circular saw, or reciprocating saw
• Drill
• Hammer

Plan your scrabble tile design

To get started making your scrabble tiles, you’ll need a plan! My oldest son and I sat down and came up with all the different design options we could think of. Some of them I loved and others would just look terrible on the wall we were using!

Try a few vertical designs and a few horizontal and see which one really stands out to you.

Once you decide on what formation you like best, you’ll need to count not only how many tiles you’ll need to make, but also the amount of each letter and number you’ll need. 

Of course we want your tiles to be as official as possible, so here are the point values assigned to each letter that I found at Something Turquoise.

If you plan to follow this tutorial exactly, here are how many of each letter and number you’ll find in the vinyl stickers I used:

Remove the wood planks from your pallet

In past pallet projects we tried to pry the wood planks off, but it definitely wasn’t easy and we ended up with a few broken boards.

This time we decided to just bust out the power tools!

Using a circular saw my hubby simply cut the planks along the stringers. A reciprocating saw or hand saw would also work 😉

Clean wood planks

Once we removed the wood from the pallet, I cleaned the it using my trusty combination of 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water, and a few drops of lemon essential oil.

Look how sparkly clean they came out!

Make sure you allow them to dry completely (overnight or longer if possible) before moving on so your vinyl stickers adhere properly.

Cut pallet planks into square scrabble tiles

Once your planks have dried completely, cut them into squares using your saw.

For us that was 5.25″ x 5.25″ since that was the width of the plank on our pallet.

As you can see you’ll probably have many different textures from your pallet.  I liked this since I was going for a natural and rustic look for my scrabble wall decor.

If you would like all the same texture you might need to use more than one pallet to create enough of the same type of tiles.

Sand your scrabble tiles

For a nice smooth edge, we sanded the tiles manually using sand paper.  If the surface was a bit rough I also sanded that. 

Apply the vinyl letters and numbers to your tiles

Now comes the fun part!

With the help of my kids we applied the vinyl letters and numbers to our tiles. This really is a very simple process…something the whole family can take part in.

You simply peel and stick! If you’d like you can also apply a coat or two of mod podge over your tiles after applying your vinyl to seal them. I didn’t do this to mine. If your tiles have a very rough surface applying a coat of mod podge before applying your vinyl letters and numbers should help even the surface out.

One thing to note – if your tile is bowed, you’ll want to hang it on the wall so the bow goes in towards wall with the bow going from top to bottom…make sure you apply your vinyl so it can be hung in that manner.

Of course if you have a Silhouette or Cricut cutting machine you could also create your own vinyl letters and numbers instead of purchasing stickers. I just wanted this tutorial to be possible for everyone 🙂

How to hang scrabble wall tiles

To hang our tiles we used small picture frame hangers. Attaching the hangers wasn’t hard at all – as you can see with a little adult supervision my son also helped us with this.

I do admit that when it comes time to actually hang the tiles it’s a bit tedious and requires some measuring and preciseness.

Don’t tell my hubby, but I did come across a much simpler way to hang your wall scrabble tiles after our project was already complete and on the wall.

As they did at What’s On My Porch, you can attach your tiles to a few thin pieces of wood. Then using only a few picture hangers or sawtooth hangers you can hang the whole design as one unit.

Again…please do not tell my husband this after he hung each tile individually!! 😬

I hope this wall scrabble tile tutorial helps you create the perfect rustic wall decor for your entryway, living room, family room, or any place that needs a little meaningful sprucing up!

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