DIY glow-in-the-dark Halloween board game

At last! A board game for the mini Halloween figures I made yonks ago. This was always the plan - it's just taken me a very long time to get round to it.  If you'd like to make the figures, the pumpkin and the witch are here and the ghost and vampire bat here.

To be fair, the glow-in-the-dark part is a bit of a novelty; I just really wanted to get some glow-in-the-dark paint. And it does glow, though not quite enough to read what's on the squares in the pitch black, and certainly not enough for me to get a decent picture. Sure anyway, it all adds to the fun, and the game works fine without too.

You'll need:
a cereal box (at least 28cm high)
glow-in-the-dark paint (optional)
good black felt tip (like a Sharpie)
ruler
scissors
toilet paper tube
paint
LED tea light (optional)
sweets (optional!)

1. Open up the cereal box - use the creased lines to help you draw a square 28cm x 28cm. Don't cut it out yet - easier to paint the whole square and draw lines when it's like this - less mess as well!


2. (Optional) Paint your square with a few coats of glow-in-the-dark paint.

3. Use the ruler to measure and mark points 3.5cm along all 4 lines. Then join them up with the black felt tip to make a grid. (3cm was too small and 4 was too big - 3.5 seemed just right)
Cut it out.

4. Now the bit that my kids really enjoyed - coming up with the good square/bad squares. Kind of like Snakes and Ladders, with an evil twist. We did a few miss-a-goes too. And my daughter came up with the idea of having some Trick or Treat squares. If you land on one you can have a sweet. I did try to point out no one was likely to want to do a trick with sweets on offer, but anyway!

Here are most of ours - I bet you could come up with even more gruesome ones.

Good squares: Halloween! +5, Jump on a broomstick +2, Drink witch's brew +1, find a black cat +3, Zombie party! +3, Full Moon! +4, Win a gruesome ghoul contest +4

Bad squares: Spell backfires -5, fall into a cauldron -3, Phantom flu -2, turn into a frog -3, lose your head! -4, and the worst of the lot, 'Zapped by a Ghostbuster! Back to the beginning'

Miss a go: get stuck in a web, catch Hog warts, fall in a slime pool

5. Write on your squares, (use different colours if you want) making sure you don't have for example, a +2 landing on a -2, sending your figure endlessly forward and back, like being trapped in limbo, FOREVER!!

6. Fill the numbers in around the good and bad squares (make sure you include them in your counting)

7. The winner is the first one to reach the haunted castle at the end of the game. It's made from a toilet paper tube. Cut out a door shape at the bottom, and make short, evenly spaced cuts around the top. Bend back every other flap to form battlements.

Use nail scissors to pierce a few holes in the tube and cut thin slits for windows. Then paint.

We popped a LED tea light (from IKEA) inside, to give it a ghoulish glow.

We've all played, even the grumpy teenager, and it's been great having a bit of time and a bit of fun together. Doesn't happen as much as I'd like these days.

Now looking for other things to do with the glow-in-the-dark paint.... Tempted to put 'tidy your room, or else...' on the 13 year old's wall, so it mysteriously appears at night.

Too mean? :)

Linking up with Trash 2 Treasure and Creative Mondays