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Wooden tic tac toe board with painted rocks on an iron table outside.
Print Recipe

Make an Outdoor 2 Player Tic Tac Toe Game with Rocks

Make an Outdoor 2 Player Tic Tac Toe Game with Rocks you paint. Then take it outside and challenge a friend to a tic tac toe game!
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time40 minutes
Total Time45 minutes
Course: Craft, Nature craft/activity
Cuisine: Craft
Keyword: 2 person tic tac toe, noughts and crosses game, play tic tac toe, play tic tac toe 2 player, playing tic tac toe, tic tac toe 2 player game xoxo, tic tac toe 2 player games, tic tac toe board wood, tic tac toe game two player, tic tac toe wood board game, tic tac toe, tick tack toe, tic tac toe game, tic tac toe 2 player, wooden tic tac toe board, wooden tic tac toe board game, xo game
Servings: 1 Tic-tac-toe game (rock playing pieces and board)
Author: Shelly
Cost: $6

Equipment

  • Paintbrushes

Ingredients

Instructions

  • So let’s do something different and Make an Outdoor 2 Player Tic-Tac-Toe Game with Rocks.
    You are going to need 10 smooth rocks that are at least an inch in diameter. Perhaps you have some on a driveway or in a rock garden you can use.
    I didn’t have any river rock around my place so I bought a small bag at a craft store.
  • Paint five of the rocks one color and five of the rocks a second color with acrylic craft paints. I chose a blue and a green. You can choose whatever two colors you would like, of course. 
    This will be the background colors for your playing pieces so each player can easily see which set of stones is his or hers.
    First paint the top side of the rock and set them down on newspaper. 
    Allow the paint to dry and then turn them over and paint the bottom side as well. 
  • Now comes the fun part. You will paint designs on the rocks. 
    Of course you can choose to paint an X on one set of rocks and an O on the second set. But I thought that was just a bit too traditional. :-)
    The point is to be able to tell the two sets of stones for the players. So you could put anything on them that you want!
    Think of one design for one set of stones and a second design for the second set of stones.
    I chose to paint daisies on my blue rocks and silhouettes of bugs on my green rocks! Use the acrylic craft paints.
  • The second thing to get ready is a playing board. We need a grid to play tic-tac-toe on with our rocks.
    I had this tree trunk slab that was cut for my daughter’s wedding. We used them for table decorations. It will be good for a playing board.
    You could use a board of any sort that you might have from a previous project. Or perhaps you have an old placemat that you can paint on. Be creative and think what you could use for your grid.
    Note: You’re always welcome to draw your grid with chalk on your sidewalk and use your rocks there as well.
    Use your acrylic craft paints and paint a tic-tac-toe grid onto your background. You can draw the lines on the board with a ruler to get them straight and even if you want to.
    In the pictures and video, you’ll see me paint mine on the slab of tree trunk.
    You paint two vertical lines that are parallel and then two horizontal lines that are also parallel. They cross in the center. 
    This makes a grid that gives us nine spaces to play tic-tac-toe on!
    Now let everything dry and you are ready to challenge someone to a game of tic-tac-toe. 
    Directions on how to play tic-tac-toe and the history of tic-tac-toe are found on the website at this post.

Video

Notes

Tip: After letting the rocks dry, I did go back and paint them with a protective acrylic clearcoat. I plan to leave them outside on my front porch on a little table so we can play it this summer. So I wanted it to be protected from the weather.