How to Make an Easter Tic-Tac-Toe Game

You can give someone special an Easter gift that could sit as comfortably on an executive's desk as it could on a child's. An Easter Tic-Tac-Toe game, where the X's and O's are eggs and bunnies, is adorable and provides a great diversion to keep your children busy, or for those days at the office when goofing off for a few minutes helps to relax.

You need a decorative unfinished wooden plaque. It can be square, round, or oval, but should be at least 3 1/2 inches across and long.

Create the board first. Sand the plaque until the finish is completely smooth, use a tack cloth to remove any dust from it, and then apply an acrylic sealer. When it has dried apply a layer of base coat acrylic paint. Since you want it to look like grass, use a medium green. Paint Allow the paint to dry.

Cut 4 strips of 1/8 inch satin ribbon, which are 2 3/4 inches long. If you are using a circle that is 3 ½ inches round, measure in 3/8 inch from the edge and 1/4 inch from the top and glue the first ribbon horizontally. Measure down one inch and lay a second horizontal ribbon. Do the same with the last two ribbons only lay them vertically. You should have a ribbon Tic-Tac-Toe board in front of you when you are finished. Add final touches of tiny-stenciled tulips and stems. Also a cute touch is to highlight the crisscrossing areas by putting a purple or pink dot in each of the four corners where the ribbons intersect.

If you can find 3/4 inch wooden eggs that have a flat bottom buy them. Otherwise you need to sand the bottoms of the eight eggs until it is flat enough for the egg to sit on end. You have to do this to eight eggs, so it is worth your time to check around. Try each egg out after you have sanded the bottom side (the wide end) to see if the egg can stand on end. Sand the eggs smooth, wipe with a tack cloth, and seal with acrylic sealer.

When the sealer is dry, paint four of the eggs white. The eggs are the players. Four will be bunnies and four will be eggs.

The egg players are simple to create once the wooden eggs are sealed. You can paint them each different Easter colors and decorate with stripes and stars as you would decorate any Easter egg.

To create the bunny players, use the eggs that you originally painted white. Cut the bunny ears from white craft foam (Use a petal shape with one end flat.) and glue it to the top (small end) of the white egg. Paint a pink dot for the nose and two black dots for eyes. Glue two small white pom-poms in front at the bottom for the feet and a larger one for the cottontail.

You can use larger eggs if you choose, but you will need to increase the size of the board and Tic-Tac-Toe ribbon if you do.