DIY Guess Who Board Game Tutorial

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Make a personalized Guess Who Board using this tutorial! This makes for a great DIY gift for children.

DIY Guess Who Game Board

This month, I’m excited to be partnering once again with Cricut – my favorite crafting company!

Throughout November and December, a bunch of Cricut bloggers have come together to create lots of fun, holiday ideas that you can make with your Cricut machine.

I was asked to make this project specifically with the Cricut Explore Air machine, though you can definitely do it with the Cricut Maker.

The topic I signed up under was “DIY Family Gifts”, which, I’m not going to lie, took me awhile to come up with an idea.

I wasn’t really sure what a DIY family gift entailed – a gift for the whole family? Something you could make with your family for someone else? I was stumped.

So, I decided to take it literally, and I came up with a DIY Guess Who board that has faces of all of our kids’ cousins!

I thought it would be a fun way to help the kids remember all their cousins’ names (they love them so, but names are hard), and it would be a fun gift idea.

As with most of my projects, I didn’t think everything through quite right.

This is one of those times where you should do as I say and not as I do.

A messed up a few times throughout this project, so it didn’t turn out quite as perfectly as I would have hoped. However, I will share where I messed up so you can make sure your project does turn out perfectly! 🙂 Fortunately, it still turned out cute and useable, so I’m not that devastated. But, it just goes to show how most of my projects seem to turn out – just semi-perfect!

You can easily use whatever pictures you want – family pictures, fun pictures, etc. The sky is the limit!

Please keep in mind that although I am giving instructions for making this with a Cricut machine, you can do it without. You would just need to adjust based on the materials you have at hand and likely do some hand cutting.

Materials

2 – 12×12 pieces of wood, about 1/2-3/4″ thick (we got a large, square piece of wood from Home Depot for $3 that Forrest cut down to size.

Printable Vinyl

Balsa Wood or Bass Wood (The kind we got was from Michael’s, and they were long, skinny pieces. I believe I used four. Balsa is a little easier to cut with your Cricut, but it is a little flimsier. Here is a post I wrote about how to cut wood with the Cricut to help you decide. If you are a beginner who gets frustrated easily, I would go with Balsa).

48 Mini Hinges (cheapest if you buy these on Amazon – this is the best deal I’ve seen)

Fast Dry super glue or a tiny hammer

Spray Paint (any color)

Adhesive Vinyl

LightGrip Cutting Mat (blue mat)

Stro StrongGrip Cutting MatngGrip Mat (purple)

Premium Fine Point Blade

Design Space Template

Instructions

Please make sure you read the instructions in their entirety BEFORE you start your project! Also, I apologize for the length of this tutorial – I just wanted to be as detailed as possible.

The first part of the tutorial can be viewed in the video – I show how I created my design in Design Space.

Cut out the wood base to be 12×12.
Spray paint both sizes 2-3 times; let dry completely.
In the photo editing app of your choice (I just used PicMonkey, which I love and recommend) upload each photo that you want to use. Crop it to a vertical rectangle. Save and repeat with all your images.
In Design Space, create a 11.5″x11.5″ sized square; in the layers panel, change it to be white. You can look at the template I created here.
Choose the square shape again, and press the little button on the bottom left side that unlocks the dimensions. Change it to a rectangle, and then lock the dimensions again.
Make the rectangle about 1.7″ wide.
Duplicate this rectangle five times and arrange across the top of the board.
Select all of the six rectangles and copy and paste another row and place it below the first row. Repeat for two more rows.
Now, upload all the images you created earlier. This does take some time. Save them as print and cut files and add them to your design canvas.
Place each photo over one of the rectangles, make it slightly smaller than that rectangle.
Select all the remaining elements (the rectangles + images) and press “group”. If any of the images go behind the rectangle, right click on each rectangle and select “send back”
In the layers panel, change each photo to print and cut (if they aren’t already). The rectangles behind the photos should be set to cut.
Press “make it”. If it says that the image is too large to print, just resize the entire grouped image (since you pressed group in step 12, you can all resize everything all at once).
At the top of the mat preview, select that you want to do two copies of this project.
Look at your mats and make sure your images are all set to print first, and then cut.
Look at the mats with the rectangles that are set to cut. Arrange them horizontally to fit the piece of wood you are using. With the wood I used, I could only fit one row for each mat, so I hovered over each rectangle below the first row, clicked the three dots, and selected “move to another mat.” I made three other mats.
You will NOT be cutting the large 11.5×11.5″ square – hide this mat before you press make it.
Press the make it button.
You will first send your images to your printer. Make sure you have placed the printable vinyl in (most likely vinyl side down) for as pieces are being printed.
Print and then place on a LightGrip mat as carefully as possible.
Change the material in Design Space to printable vinyl.
Cut images and set aside.
Now, place your wood piece on a StrongGrip mat and adjust your settings to cut the wood. I highly suggest testing your settings before you start the project to make sure you get a nice, clean cut. Make sure you read this post about cutting with wood.
Cut the words “Guess Who” using your choice of vinyl. I used glitter vinyl.
After your wood has all been cut out, you can now remove each image from the printable vinyl and carefully place it on one of the pieces of wood.
Now, glue one dollhouse hinge to the bottom of each piece of wood. NOTE: This is where I totally messed up. Make sure you test the direction of the hinge before you glue it to the game piece. You want it to be able to lie flat when it is pushed forward.This is how it should look (it should be glued to the front)

Not like this (it shouldn’t be glued to the back)
Let dry completely.
Once dry, place each game piece on the board to make sure everything fits. You can either glue the hinge in place or if you have a small hammer, you can hammer it in place. I didn’t have a hammer small enough to do this successfully.
Let everything set in place.
Repeat with other board
If you’d like, you can cut the words “Guess Who” out of vinyl and place at the bottom of each board.