DIY Weekend (or Week) Tumbling Tower Project

Make your own life size replica Jenga for $10 or buy it for $89.95, you decide!

We played with life size Jenga blocks in Vegas and I thought, we have got to have these! I was excited to find them here until I saw the price tag.

We have game night at our house and I thought these would be a perfect addition to our family fun, so I set out to make them for a fraction of the price.

There are many routes you can take (like using 2x4's), but I opted for the budget DIY that also won't crush a small child when they fall.

I used:

• 5 - 8' 2x3's ($10 for 5!)

• Chop saw, if you don't have one you can pay for cuts at Home Depot and Lowe's (I think it's like $0.25 a cut though. Still cheaper than the alternative on Amazon!)

• Router with a round-over bit (not a must, but it matches the other rounded edges the wood comes with.)

5 - 8' 2x3"s

We clamped a stop on the left for easy cutting.

Cut 54 pieces into 6 1/2" lengths

Fortunately for me our youngest just took a wood shop class, so he was a willing and able helper. We bought 5 - 8' 2x3's at Home Depot and cut the boards into 6 1/2" lengths on the chop saw until we had 54 game pieces. (We had some leftover game pieces, so we tried to use the best out of the bunch.) There are a few that could be remade, but I didn't want to go over the $10 budget, lol.

Routing is messy business for this mermaid!

I thought this would only take a day, or maybe a weekend, but for us we spread it out to whenever our youngest felt like working on it! He would route 6-9 blocks at a time, until he was over it. So 54 divided by 6-9 blocks a day...you do the math. So if you skip the routing step, you'd already be done, lol!

If you wanted to get fancy though, you could sand them and create your own stencil for the sides. We came up with Chenga for ours. (It is a cross between our last name and Jenga.)

We didn't sand them, so splinters are just a part of the game, but I would recommend it, especially if you aren't routing the edges.

This would be a great project to make for a family reunion, which I am hoping to have here in the near future!

3 feet tall and growing

Hope you liked this project. Be sure to take pictures and share them if you make a set. (A mini version would be pretty cool!)

And please supervise the younger ones, wouldn't want them to get buried under a pile of blocks when they topple!

Great for inside and outside!

NOTE: The great thing about this project is, if you get tired of having it around after the summer months you can always use it for firewood come Fall!