Flax art and design Make Your Own Opoly

I just purchased this last week on amazon.com for $24.99. My best friend and I both have December birthdays so in attempt to save money during the holiday season, years ago we decided that one gift (birthday or Christmas) had to be made. I really struggled this year until I came across this make your own 'opoly' game. What Fun!

This game comes with a CD that you download right on to your PC. Takes about 5 minutes and you are ready to start. The direction booklet is easy to follow and there are 6 template options to start with (family, individual, generic, etc.). I chose the individual option and called it "Jen & D" opoly (insert your 2 best friend names here).

First you create each of the 'properties' including an appropriate clip art file from the CD or from your own photos,etc. I used a combination of clip art, photos and logos that I downloaded from the internet. Each of the properties for me ended up being a place that the 2 of us had been together...Vegas, favorite restaurants, malls, streets we used to live on, jobs we had, etc.

It took me about 2 hours to complete the entire project...this included copying and pasting images from the web into Adobe photoshop (use any program you have for this), re-sizing, cropping, etc.

Once I had the game completed it was time to print all of the parts. The kit came with 3 sheets of adhesive backed paper for the box lables, board labels and property labels. My only complaint here is that they could have included extra sheets just in case. It came with 3 and you need all 3...no margin for error. Be sure to do the test page and read it carefully and make sure you don't want to make any changes BEFORE you print the real thing. I was so anxious to get finished (because I waited until the last minute) that I didn't notice that some of the properties needed tweeking until after I used the adhesive sheets. Later I was able to use a large mailing label to re-print the one property that I wanted to change so it turned out ok.

The next thing is the good luck and bad luck cards...since I was making this about the 2 of us so I wanted 2 different sets of cards, one in each name. The kit only comes with one sheet of pink and one sheet of green cardstock with this. I needed 2 and thankfully had some at home. One mistake I made here is that when you go in to change the names from the generic name 'george' to your names, you not only have to change the card title, but also the individual text on each card to make it name and gender appropriate. I missed that second part and printed right on the card stock only to find that cards that said "jen's bad luck" talked about george on the actual..."clean out george's garage find $100" part. This ended up being ok because I decided later to do the cards twice with each of our 2 names and needed to reprint them with the card stock I had at home anyways. Also, for some reason the inc does hold very well on the adhesive paper...I used a lazer printer and it flakes off a bit if you rub it too hard...try an ink jet.

Next is printing the property cards. Again you need 2 sheets of white card stock and that's all the kit comes with so be sure you have everyone exact before you use it.

Lastly its time to create and print the money. The only thing I wished I could change was the name on the money. There are 4 denominations and I used a different picture on each and would have liked the option to name each bill differently...Example: For the $100 bill I used a picture of my pup (my husband insisted) who is appropriately named "Sir Theodore Roosevelt"...I wanted this one to be called: Teddy Bucks...that's great except then each of the others would have also been named Teddy Bucks which didn't work b/c his picture wasn't on the others. I instead had to make them all "Jen & D" bucks which was ok.

Finally, assembling the game. The most time involved in the whole process is cutting everything out. Yes, you have to cut out ALL of the individual stickers, money, etc. Not so bad until you get to the 20+ (I went overboard and printed 10 sheets of each bill instead of the 5 sheets that are "required" for you to able to place the game). I am still cutting an hour later! This is the only part I really don't like and would have preferred that maybe they use a perforated card stock for not only the money but also the property and good new and bad news cards. That would have saved a bunch of time!

Overall this is a unique and personal gift. I highly recommend it and know it is going to be a big hit at our birthday dinner tonight. Wonder if the restaurant will mind if we have them clear the table after dinner so that we can play?:) I would recommend this for a bosses' retirement, wedding, birthday, anniversary, etc. Although game play itself isn't the same (it's made by a different company that the regular 'opoly' games) and there aren't hotels and houses to buy, it is the personalization that makes this so great. Definitely recommend!

***Added - I was asked to elaborate on the game play. I haven't had time to read all the directions but the biggest difference is that you can not purchase houses and hotels to increase the value of your property value when someone lands on your property. Instead you get more money for owning more than one in a group of properties. We haven't actually played it yet so that is what stands out from the little I did read and from the other reviews I found before purchasing. Hope that helps.