Shut the Box Game and Other Dice Game Party Favors

Big news this year for my family, we are expecting our 3rd little boy this December. For those that follow me on Instructables, you know that means more birthday party plans to look forward to!

This particular 'ible came into being because of baby Kierian. We are planning the baby shower and since board games/ video games are a huge part of our household, we chose board games as the theme for the shower.

With this theme, we had to think of what to do for the thank you party favors. I decided to send home games with each guest to play at home with their families. To do this without breaking the bank, we went with dice games since all we would need for most is dice and instructions.

The games we included are Yahtzee, Farkle, Beetle, and Shut the Box.

It's a simple matter to find the instructions and score cards for these games online but the shut the box needs the box with the numbers to play.

I searched for how to make a Shut the Box game online but all I could find was how to make it with wood. While that is the traditional way the game is made and it looks great, I don't have the time, tools, skills, or money to make 20 games with wood. So, I had to figure out how to make it myself.

I had a nice picture of all the materials you need for this project but my stupid SD card on my phone messed up and the photo was corrupted. You need:

Shut the Box:

Card board (we collect boxes for just such occasions)

a sheet of plain card stock

thin dowel rods

thick material to make the number tiles( we recycled this thick material that I think came from the backing of picture frames. I save random stuff in a junk drawer for projects so I'm not sure exactly where it came from.)

scissors

tape

glue stick

exacto knife

pencil

white paint pen or something to write the numbers with (my panels were black so I needed white)

Gift bag and other games:

White paper gift bags

black construction paper

scissors

glue stick

stapler

print offs of rules, score sheets, and thank you tags found in this 'ible

lots of dice (6 for each bag)

Step 1: Number Tiles

My games ended up being about 6 inches long. I didn't go about this in any planned, mathematical manner at all. I just started making parts and was lucky it all worked perfectly.

Blame the phone and its stupid SD card on lack of photos for the dowel rods too. I had a bunch of dowel rods saved in the art junk pile. I just cut all of my thin ones in half. They ended up about 6 inches long.

The old thick black material I had in my junk drawer was a perfect fit, I believe they were 5 by 7. I just divided it into 9 tiles across the short side and marked out a length for the tiles I thought would work for the size I wanted it to end up.

Cut all the tiles out.

Step 2: Making the Loop

Now to have a way to connect the number tiles to the dowel rod and allow for them to be flipped up and down.

I cut thin strips from plain white card stock.

Place the end of a strip against a tile at about or just below half the height of the tile.

Wrap the paper strip around the dowel rod and hold it against the other side of the tile.

Mark the paper at about the same height up the tile as the first side.

Cut the section of paper off

Use it to trace the size onto the rest of the paper strip and any other strips you have cut.

Cut out all the small strips

Step 3: Attach the Loops

Use the glue stick to put glue up to about half the height of the tile on both sides.

Place the end of a paper strip onto the tile

Hold the dowel rod up against the tile, wrap the strip around it and press the end of the strip to the glue on the back side of the tile.

Hold the two sides firm and test the movement of the tile on the dowel rod. Make sure it is able to move without too much trouble.

Slide the tile off the end of the dowel rod.

Step 4: Extra Hold

I found that the glue wasn't really reliable. It was easy to slide the paper around.

I used tiny pieces of tape to give it an extra hold.

Step 5: The "Box"

Cardboard is great stuff.

Again, there wasn't a mathematical approach here, I just drew out a rectangle. I would say it was about 6.5 or 7 inches long and about 2 to 2.5 inches wide. The dowel rod should reach to about a quarter or a half of an inch from the sides as seen in the pictures. Mark the spots the ends of dowel rod reach.

Draw lines at the sides to make flaps so that the marked spot for the dowel rod is centered on the flap.

Draw a line to divide the rectangle longways. Make one section a little bigger than the other. The larger section will be the base and the smaller will be the back that the tiles rest against.

Cut on the line on each of the short sides that divides the rectangle in half up to the start of the flap. This will make 2 flaps on each side.

Fold on the lines.

Poke a hole through the marked spots for the dowel rod. Make sure the rod fits through.

Fold the "box" where the flaps from the base are in front and the flaps from the back fold over them.

Poke a hole through the first hole and all the way through the second flap. Make sure the rod fits.

Tape or glue the flaps together to hold. Hot glue would look much better but I just used tape to make it faster.

Step 6: Put It Together

Gather 9 of your number tiles and write numbers on them 1 through 9.

String them onto the dowel rod in numerical order.

Push the dowel rod into the holes in the "box"

Test that all the numbers are easily flipped up and down.

It would look a lot cleaner and better if you spray paint the card board first and use hot glue instead of tape. If I had it to do over, I would do it that way.

Step 7: Rules and Score Sheets

Here are all the rules and score sheets. They are made to fit 4 to a sheet. Cut them out and stack the pages in the correct order. Staple the books together.

I made 3 books. One for all the rules. One for the yahtzee score sheets. And one for the Beetle sheets.