With Portable Checkers You’ll Never Be Board

“King me!” was a common phrase you could hear in my house growing up. Checkers was one of the first games my older brothers taught me, and it was one of the only games I could occasionally beat them at. As I grew older, so did my competitive spirit. My brothers continued to teach me new games and I grew to be an actual competitive force to be reckoned with. Every victory as a kid was savored and even now bragging rights are still a sufficient prize within our board game rivalries.

My siblings and I are hours apart now. Between the luggage, gifts, and pets typically in tow on our trips to visit there’s not a lot of room left in the car for a big, clunky board game box. Siser heat transfer vinyl makes it possible to take my classic board game with me and pack a few more items into my vehicle!

For the checker board I used a black nylon drawstring backpack and white EasyWeed Extra. I knew I could us the negative space on my bag for the black squares, so I would only need one material. Read more about using negative space in your designs in my previous post Using Negative Space for a Positive Effect.

I created my checkerboard pattern in Silhouette Studio. The squares are about one inch tall and wide, while the board itself is a 10 inch square.

EasyWeed Extra has all the benefits of EasyWeed with the additional bonus of being able to be applied to nylon. To cut this material I placed it on the Silhouette cutting mat with the shiny side face down. I chose the “Heat Transfer Material Smooth” option and adjusted my blade so it was exposed at 9 with a speed of 8 and the thickness set at 6. I also enabled “Line Segment Overcut” within the Advanced Cut Settings because there are so many crisp corners to be cut in the design.

While weeding I always like to look at my cut file, so I can keep an eye on what the end product should look like. I get weeding happy sometimes and have removed pieces I actually needed, oops! Looking at a picture helps me stay on track.

EasyWeed Extra weeds as simply as EasyWeed. Try the heat press trick for quickest weeding. Don’t know what the heat press trick is? Read about it and more HTV tips and tricks in my previous post The HTV Basics for Beginners.

When all the unnecessary vinyl is removed, it’s time to apply it! EasyWeed Extra can be applied at a temperature of 320°F with medium pressure for 10 seconds.

Before pressing, I put a heat transfer pillow inside the backpack and arranged the bag on the platen so that the large drawstring knots hang off the heat press and don’t interfere with pressing. Things like drawstring knots, seams, buttons, etc. should be avoided while heat pressing because they can keep the upper platen from fully pressing the heat transfer material.

After centering the checkerboard, I placed a heat transfer cover sheet on top and then pressed for a full 10 seconds.

EasyWeed Extra’s carrier sheet can be peeled hot or cold.

The board is complete! But you have to have pieces to play.

I created the checker pieces using scrap heat transfer materials from previous projects. They are made out of silver and gold confetti Glitter as well as white Brick. I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut one inch circles out of all of my scraps. Then I heat applied the Brick to some scrap fabric and layered the Glitter on top. Joe’s post Oh, Crop You Can Do That?! details how to layer Glitter on top of Brick. I also cut out crowns in Glitter which I heat applied to the fabric side of the pieces because checkers wouldn’t be complete unless you can shout “King me!”

The combination of brick and glitter make perfect checker pieces for on the go. Plus it’s easy to store them in this drawstring bag. I’ll have no problem toting this classic board game next time I travel. I can’t wait to challenge my brothers to game!