Rainbow Jenga Tutorial

TUTORIALS, DIY, CRAFT IDEAS, AND FUN STUFF

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN RAINBOW GIANT JENGA

Let's take backyard games up a notch!

I don't know about you but I have been spending a lot of time outside this Summer and we all could use a rainbow after the storm we have been through; cue my rainbow Jenga tutorial!

I got inspired to create this when I, much like many of you, went searching online for fun games to play at home. I found myself on Anthropologie with this Sunnylife Giant Rainbow Jenga in my cart, daydreaming about how my family would deem me the MVP of the Summer for purchasing. My dream took a turn when I went to check out and noted the price, $110 buckaroonies!

For a brief second I almost forgot that I am a hand made queen and started thinking of my life without a rainbow Jenga game, it was very dreary indeed. However, I quickly snapped out of it and started cooking up my tutorial and gathering my supplies.

This project took me an hour and I will treasure it for a lifetime. It only cost me a total of $60 because I owned some of the supplies already, which is almost half the cost of the Sunnylife version!

This isn't my first handmade Jenga game, I must admit. The first one I made was a raunchy gift for a girlfriend with handwritten dares. One of my favorite dares is "friend the first 10 people on Facebook suggested friends" or suffer the consequences of 2 shots. Yes, all the punishments are that intense, we only bring it out on "special occasions".

materials needed to make a rainbow giant jenga game

Untreated Giant Jenga Game

Assorted Colors of Rit Dye
- This has been tough to find lately, I had success on Ebay & at Michael's in store pick up

Sponge Brush

A cup to hold dye mixture, I did each color one at a time and washed between uses.

Hot water

rainbow Giant jenga tutorial

step 1

Choose which colors you would like and how many blocks for each. I originally planned to go with fuchsia, lemon, kelly green, teal, royal blue, and purple (actual Rit color names). I last minute realized I didn't have orange to complete my rainbow, so I swapped out teal since I already had a green. I mixed fuchsia & lemon to make a nice orange. If you really wanted to save money, you could just buy the primary colors, fuschia, yellow, & royal blue, to mix to make orange, green, and purple.

My game came with a total of 51 blocks. I did 6 colors, 8 blocks of each. and did my extra 3 in fuchsia, because duh, pink.

As I am writing this I realize that Jenga blocks are stacked in 3's, not 4's. I was going off of memory of the Sunnylife version when I did this, so I missed that detail. Oops. If you want to do a rainbow, I'd suggest doing 9 blocks of each, except for purple do 6 blocks.

steP 2

Now it's time to mix your dye. Be sure to protect your project station with a trash bag or table cloth. I laid down paper towels as well to catch any running dye. I did one color at a time because the dyes work best when the water is hot. You could mix them all at once, if you would like, just heat up in the microwave when it is time to dye. It is also best to heat up your dye in the microwave (~30 sec) between coats if you want a more saturated color like mine.

Mix 2 pinches or a dime size amount of dye in 1/2 cup hot water. This should be enough to cover all your blocks, but you can always mix up a little more. Mix the dye until all of the particles are absorbed into the water.

step 3

Lay out your blocks next to each other like pictured. Dip your sponge brush in the dye mixture and dab on the side to get rid of excess water. Try to not have so much water on your brush that dye drips down the side. Start by painting the square part of the blocks first. The square part is the area most likely to have drips, so by painting it first the color is more even. Then paint the tops of the blocks and rotate until you have painted every side. Heat dye in the microwave for 30 seconds and repeat until desired color is reached. If the color isn't saturated enough for you, add more dye.

step 4

Repeat for each color until all the blocks are colored. Replace the paper towels under your blocks between colors so they don't mix. Set up your blocks vertically (balancing on the square part) to dry. Make sure you protect your surface where you are drying too, these are permanent dyes so be extra careful :).

step 5

Once dry - ENJOY!

AND VOILA! YOU HAVE A RAINBOW JENGA GAME!

XOXO,

Lauren @ CRFT CLUB