Family Time with the Andersons: Anderhand Boardgames

This past Christmas, we gave out our last homemade board-game of the four we made for our siblings and their families. It was a lot of work, but it allowed us to be creative and work on something fun together. To make the board-games, Ryan picked out the wood at the hardware store in a big slab, and then sectioned it out with his circular-saw and put on the hinges. Next, we came up with a concept and themes, and Ryan designed the layout of the board-game. Then, I traced the layout on and drew a nice title for each cover. It took us a little while to come up with just the right logo for ourselves, but finally Ryan liked this sun idea I came up with and we made the sun beams triangle shaped for easier wood burning.

Ryan used his wood-burner to go over everything I drew and did a little sanding around the edges. He also carved out a nook for the tokens to be able to sit in when you closed the board-game. I stained the wood and let them dry, then they were ready for paint. This part was really hard for me because I needed to come up with what each picture would be and make sure it coordinated well with the rest of the game, and also come up with what the token characters would be. We were able to get the wood pieces for the tokens from a craft store. Once all that was decided it was easy to get the painting done, though it did take hours to do the painting.

I also painted on the background for the instructions and came up with what they would say and Ryan would help me with any tweaking of the wording and then he would write it on with a fine sharpy. Once the painting was done, I sprayed it with some varnish and they were DONE! Each board-game probably took, by my estimate, about 35 hours between my and Ryan's time, over the course of several months. Here's a gallery of how they turned out! =)

UNDERSEA ADVENTURE: