Happy Hump Day! I have one nerd-tastic project to share today. We recently added a chess board to our outdoor game table (click here for the post about my awesome game table). I decided I needed some chess pieces to go with our new board. I started out by googling "DIY Chess Pieces" and "Unfinished Chess Pieces." One of the first items to come up was unfinished peg people. This is a DIY trend that is pretty new. Peg people are a fun way to customize kids toys. You can do members of your family, your child's favorite characters (I *may* be making some super hero ones for Christmas) or some dolls that are bit better role models than Barbies or Bratz dolls. (No hate intended...my daughter has Barbies as well) I was all set to make a traditional chess set. While trying to find some ideas, I ran across this awesome tutorial by Carrielynneh for making a Harry Potter inspired chess set. Her set was really interesting and unique, so I decided to abandon the traditional set and go with a new nerdy set. I made some variations to Carrielynneh's set. I decided my "queen" of the bad guy set would be Bellatrix instead of Deloris. Since the peg people I purchased had more female looking knights, I decided to make my good guy knight Molly Wesley. I do hope at some point Molly gets to kill Bellatrix. My pawns are Quiditch players and the strange looking rook for the bad guys is Lucius Malfoy. (He's the only one I just couldn't seem to get quite right) Once I was done painting everything, each piece got two coats of poly so they will be durable. I then took a plastic bead container I already had and modified it to fit the set. The set is ready to use! Now if I could only convince my husband to join the Harry Potter band wagon. The First Round of Paint The Drying Station The Paint Station Painting Done, but No Poly Yet! Painting Done and Poly is Dry!