Scrabble name picture

Earlier this year I needed to get a birthday present for twin boys who were celebrating their first birthday. I have never bought presents for babies or children before, so had no idea what to get, and as I hadn't known them that long I didn't know what toys and games they had already.

Furthermore their parents are my boyfriend's brother and his wife, who I had only got to know a few months previously, so I wanted to make a good impression! One of my favourite websites is www.notonthehighstreet.com, which features gifts that you can't buy in high street stores. Most things are handmade, which justifies their price, but they are still quite expensive. I kept coming back to one particular item which I really liked: a framed picture with a word or name spelled out in scrabble letters. I thought it would be a lot cheaper to make myself, and couldn't be that hard, so I gave it a go!

First I worked out which letters I would need and went on Ebay; several people sell spare scrabble tiles and you can specify which letters you need. It would have been cheaper to buy a whole scrabble set if I'd been able to pick one up in a charity shop or a car boot sale, but I wasn't able to do that, so I bought them from Ebay.

Getting a frame wasn't as easy as I had thought either, as it needed to be quite large to accommodate all the names, but also quite deep so the glass would fit over the scrabble tiles. I ended up buying a frame over the internet that was more expensive than I would have liked, but it was the only one I could find that was the right size - and it was still a LOT less expensive than buying the ready-made gift! I used some 12x12 scrapbooking paper as the background that I already had at home.
Here are the pieces before assembly.....

.... and the finished product!

I was really pleased with it and hopefully the recipients were too. I liked it so much I might actually have to make one for myself!