Board Games

I made my guy a Sequence game for Christmas this year.  We had good memories of playing it with friends in our pre-children days, so I thought it would be fun to have our own game in the house.  And I knew I could make it for way cheaper than I could buy it!  It was funny when he opened the gift because I had wrapped it in two parts.  The first part he opened was a bag of playing cards and poker chips.  His only comment was “Odd!”  I think he thought I wanted him to take up gambling or something!!!
Sequence is the game where you try to be first to get two rows of five chips (see the blue chips above have one row).  Fun and easy to learn, and you can play with 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 or 12 players – either as singles or teams.  All you need to buy are two decks of cards and a bunch of poker chips in three different colours.
I Googled Sequence and it showed me exactly how the cards are to be placed on the board and what all the rules of the game were.  Notice there are no Jacks on the board.  The Jacks all go into the playing deck and they are the wild cards:  one-eyed Jacks remove a chip and two-eyed Jacks place a chip.  My board is a 19″ x 19″ square with the cards mod podged on it.  You could even do it on cardboard.  The size doesn’t really matter as long as the squares on the board are big enough to hold your poker chip – you just need to be able to see the number and suit.  You chop your cards in half and use each half of the card on the board.  The Joker cards in the corners are free spaces.
 This game sits out on the coffee table all the time, but usually the Sequence side is down and the . . .
. . . checkerboard side is up because it’s much prettier!!!  I painted on the light squares and then stained the board to make the dark parts.  I love these playing pieces!!!  Of course the poker chips would work just fine for checkers, but my oldest daughter who has since left home made these for me when she was about twelve.  She chopped a wooden dowel on the chop saw – I love all the different widths of the pieces!!!  And then she painted each side red or blue so they’re great to play – what’s that game called?  Othello? – where you flip your pieces over to get the board in your colour.  Love that game!
And if you get bored playing board games, you could always . . .
. . . stick poker chips in your eyes!!!