DIY Monopoly Board

I've never been a big monopoly fan. But when scheming for something thoughtful to do for my boyfriend for our anniversary, all it took was my crazy brain and a long solo roadtrip, and I came up with a personalized monopoly board! 

If you're not the crafty type you could always let Hasbro do all the work for you here, but that will run you upwards of $120. Instead, buy a $12 monopoly board + supplies, you won't pay a fortune for a board game, and it's way more thoughtful!

Here are the supplies I used:
- 1 Monopoly board game
- white poster board (2 pieces)
- random stickers from my local craft store scrapbooking aisle
- clear packing tape
- action figures
- silver spray paint
- scissors
- printer
- adhesive labels

Follow these steps to create your own monopoly board for someone you love!

STEP 1- Cut out pieces of poster board to cover up the property/railroad spots. You will need:
          -  22, 1.5in x 2in  pieces to cover property spaces
          -  14,  1.5in x 2.5 in cards chance/community chest/tax/utility spaces
          -  4, 2.5 x 2.5square pieces for the corners
* For your own planning purposes before you buy a board, here's how the original board it laid out

STEP 2- Once each piece is cut to size, now its the fun part! Here's where you will be personalizing your board into things you've done together/places you've been/inside jokes. Below is a walk through of each type of spot on the board you will be recreating

 Properties (22 spaces): I changed the streets to places we've stayed together, or parks we've been to together. Once you've written the name of the new property on each space, transfer over the money value and use a small donut of tape in the back to secure in place.

Chance & Community Chest (6 spaces): Then work on finding a name to replace "Chance" cards and "Community Chest". I replaced Community Chest with It's Your Shot (because my boyfriend and I are serious beer pong lovers) and Chance with WTF. There will be 3 spaces for each of the two types on the board, so create 3 of the replacement Chance card spots and 3 replacement Community Chest spots. Once you find the spaces to replace them with and decorate accordingly, secure them to the board with a small piece of tape. 

Railroads (4 spaces): Rename these spots to types of transportation you've been on together, ie Southwest Airlines or Megabus. Depending on the type of monopoly board you buy, these spots might need to have a cut down the center to fit with the folding of the board. Don't forget to add the cost (200 monoply dollars) for each and secure to board.

Water Works & Electric Company (2 spaces): You can make these two spots whatever you'd like, I used Facebook and Twitter but feel free to keep them the original names. Add the cost to the bottom (150 monopoly dollars for each) and secure with tape.

Tax (2 spaces): The two tax spots, one near the beginning, one at the end, are totally up to your interpretation. I used Drink Tax and Being Adorable Tax, but feel free to leave Income Tax and Super Tax as originally on the board. 

Corner Spots (4 spaces):  Now for the classic Monopoly spaces, GO, Go to Jail, Free Parking and Jail. Have fun and get creative with these spots! For example I replaced Jail with IKEA because my boyfriend find the two places the same (I however, completely disagree with him!).

STEP 3- Next step is creating the Chance and Community Chest Cards, or whatever you've renamed them as. Cut out 30 2.5in x 3.5in cards from your remaining poster board, 15 for each pile. I went through each card and made the dollar amounts the same, but wrote a funny little blurb for each. For example, if the original monopoly card said "You won the lottery, collect $150", I made it "You won free Summer Shandy for life, collect $150. Some of the cards you can't really spice up though, ie- "Do not pass go, do not collect $200". You can also put a uniform picture on the back of each of the cards to distinguish the two. I then used clear packing tape to laminate each of the cards to protect them. 

STEP 4- Now you'll have the fun task of renaming all the property and utility deed cards. Since you only lightly taped down each of the new property spots, go through all of the red property deed cards and replace the original Monopoly street name with your new name. I used adhesive labels for this part, but feel free to use whatever you have lying around the house. 
You will also have cards for the railroads, Electric Company, Water Works and Taxes, so make sure you don't forget to rename and relabel those as well.

STEP 5- Now we'll be making unique game pieces. As you see below on the left, these are the original monopoly game pieces, but why not make it more you and spray painting some action figures or small trinkets that represent you and the other person (as seen on the right)

   

All it took was little can of silver spray paint and you have Avengers monopoly pieces!

If you're feeling ambitious, you can also spray paint the monopoly houses and hotels from red and green to other crazy colors, but I kept it simple here.

STEP 6- Here comes the actual fun part, when your board finally comes together! First off, make sure all the spaces are in the correct spots. Now you can spruce your board up with all the fun stickers/printed pictures/funny quotes you have. I tried to keep my properties in some sort of order, so when we visited NYC, I put a related sticker above those streets. 

After you've decorated it the way you like, you laminate it. Now if any super crafty people out there have home laminating sheets, I'm sure it would look better, but I used clear packing tape and it worked just fine for me :) Be sure you are mindful of where the board folds as you don't want the tape to buckle or pull.

STEP 7- Creating the cover of the Monopoly box. Use the remainder of your poster board to cut a 10.5in x 15.75in piece to fit directly on top of the box. I printed out small wallet size photos to fit on the front of the box, 12 pictures, 1 for every month we've been together. Name it whatever creative name combination you can come up with :)

And there you have it, your very own custom monopoly board! Perfect to give to give as an anniversary gift to your partner, but also would work great for mothers/fathers day, birthdays, a unique scrapbook from vacation, themed around your favorite movie/TV show, and so much more!