Check out my tutorial for a DIY personalized Guess Who game!
When Kyle’s birthday rolls around, I try to challenge myself to get him a gift that he wouldn’t expect in a million years. I’m pretty proud of the things I’ve come up with in the past, but I’m definitely most proud of the gift I got him for his birthday this year.
In my head, I knew I wanted to make him some kind of personalized game. I’ve seen personalized Guess Who games on Pinterest in the past, and I thought it would be so fun to make Kyle one for his birthday using members of both of our families. It was definitely a hit, and we’ve already played it multiple times since I gave it to him.
If you’d like to make a personalized Guess Who game of your own, I’m not gonna lie – it’s not easy. This took me weeks because there are so many different elements that go into it. I also had to improvise on some things, but overall, I’m so happy with how it turned out, even with all of its imperfections.
MATERIALS:
The number of materials you need will be dependent on the number of people you use to include on your game boards. I used 24 people/pets.
– Two 12″ x 12″ wooden board (I got a bigger version of this one from Wal-Mart)
– Wooden rectangles (I ordered these ones from Michaels)
– Mini hinges and screws (I used these ones from Amazon)
– Mod podge and paint brush
– Acrylic craft paint and paintbrushes (I used red, blue, and black)
– Sticky foam sheets (I used these gold ones from Michaels)
– Paper and color printer (I printed mine out at FedEx)
– Medium-sized clothespin
– Small muslin bag
– Small screwdriver
– Glue gun with glue sticks
DIRECTIONS:
1. The first thing you need to do is decide who you want to include on your game board. Find photos of each person you want to include and make sure you can see their entire head.
2. In Photoshop (or using another photo editing program), edit the photos so you’re only left with the person’s head. This took me forever to figure out because my Photoshop skills are very limited. I looked at several tutorials, but most of them didn’t make sense to me and were way too advanced for my understanding. I found one that was super easy and helpful, and I haven’t been able to find it again for this blog post. If I do, I’ll be sure to link it.
3. Once you’re done editing all your photos to be floating heads with white backgrounds, add their names to the bottom of the photo. You can do this in Photoshop, but I opted to use Canva because I’m a little bit more seasoned in using it.
4. Print out three copies of each photo. You’ll need two for each of the game boards and one for the card stack to use when playing the actual game. I opted to make my game pieces and the cards the same size, but you can also make the cards bigger if you’d like.
5. Cut out two sets of the photos to fit the size of your wooden rectangles.
6. Before gluing the photos to the wooden pieces, paint the backs of them. I made the backs of one of my game boards red and other blue, so it would match the colors of the traditional Guess Who game, but feel free to use whatever colors you want!
7. Once the paint is dry, use the Mod Podge and paint brush to glue the photos to the wooden rectangles. Make sure you don’t double-up on colors when gluing the photos. I suggest keeping the photo stacks separately to make sure you have a complete red set and a complete blue set. Also, I opted to use Mod Podge on both the front and back of the photo to give the photos a little extra protection, but that is completely up to you.
8. With your third set of photos, peel the backs of the sticky foam sheets and place as many photos as you can on it. Cut these out, and place place them in the muslin bag to use for game play.
9. This part is optional, but I decided I wanted my game board to be black. I painted both of my wooden game boards using black acrylic paint and a paintbrush. You can choose whatever color you want if you choose to paint your game board, or even find a nice wood stain to paint onto the board.
10. Take your medium clothespin and paint it black all around. Set aside to dry.
11. Using Mod Podge, adhere one side of the mini hinges to the bottom front of each of your wooden pieces with the photos. Be extra careful and make sure you don’t get any glue on the hinge part. This will make it difficult for the pieces to move freely.
12. Once the pieces have dried, use the screwdriver to screw in the screws that come with the mini hinges. This was probably the most frustrating and tedious part for me because the screws are so tiny, but obviously, it was worth it to get it all done.
13. Once all of the pieces on the game boards have been screwed in, use a glue gun to adhere the clothespin to the board. I put mine on the bottom right-hand side, but feel free to place yours anywhere near the front. Only put glue on one half of the clothespin so you can still squeeze the backs of the clothespins together, otherwise, it won’t work, and you’ll just have a clothespin glued to the front of your board. The clothespin will be used to secure your card when you’re actually playing the game.
14. Depending on what kind of game boards you bought, your screws may go through the bottom. If so, you can glue an additional board to the bottom or use Gorilla Glue to glue some plywood to the bottom of the board. We ended up using plywood from Hobby Lobby, and then I painted the sides and bottom of the plywood black too.
15. Play the game! You can find the rules to the traditional Guess Who by clicking here.
Have you ever made a personalized board game?
