DIY Harry Potter Monopoly board!

Hello All! I have a new Harry Potter DIY today :)

First and foremost, I have a disclaimer. This monopoly board is not my original idea, meaning the graphics and what not are NOT mine. I got all the graphics and ideas from this instructables page: 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Wizards-Monopoly-Harry-Potter-Monopoly/?ALLSTEPS

I am simply writing this blog post to show you how I personally made the monopoly board. This is just to show my version of this awesome monopoly board. You can get all the printable straight from that link above for FREE! 

Now that that's settled, onto the project!! 

As some of you may know, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. When I saw these awesome Harry Potter Monopoly boards I knew I had to make one! It's unfortunate that Monopoly does not have a Harry Potter version, because I know MANY people that would but it. There are many other versions available and you can simply google or pinterest and you will find them :) 

Materials needed:

• Printed Monopoly board (size 20x20)
• Old/New Monopoly board game
• Spray Adhesive (Mine is from Krylon, I got it from Hobby Lobby) 
• White Card stock
• Printer 
• Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, and Gold Acrylic paint and paint brush (optional)
• Natural brown colored card stock paper (optional)
• Pastel colored copy paper (optional)

Step 1: The very first thing I did is I got the Monopoly board printed professionally. This is something you definitely DO NOT have to do. You can simply print it at home. Of course, if you print it at home it'll be in multiple pieces rather than one big piece. I wanted my board to have that glossy feel and be connected therefore I went through in online print shop and printed it. The size for the monopoly board is 20x20. It was about $12 (including shipping) to get it printed. 

Step 2: I trimmed the print out (I cut off all the white surrounding area to ensure that it fits). I also cut down one side of the board to make sure that when you fold it, it is able to fold. There is a slit in the actual board to fold it, and that's where you would cut. Then, I used spray adhesive to attach that to an actual Monopoly board. I used the 80th anniversary edition. I chose this particular edition because the houses and hotels are made of wood rather than plastic. You can get this board on Amazon and many other places. A cheaper alternative would be to get the board at a thrift store or any secondhand shop. Because this monopoly board folds more than one way, you need to make sure you score the paper where it folds so that it may fold cleanly. (I used a bone folder, but it is not necessary). 

Step 3: Print out all that Property and game cards. You can print these straight onto white card stock, I personally printed them onto natural brown card stock paper. I wanted it to kind of look like they're on parchment but I wanted the think sturdy-ness of card stock. The room of Requirement cards are on a light brown paper, while the Ministry of Magic cards are on darker brown paper. For the property cards I just used regular white card stock. 

*Remember, you'll be printing these front and back so don't just print straight from the file. Print one side first and then feed the paper back through to print on the back. This will save time in having to glue the front and back together and also save you paper*

I used a paper trimmer to cut out all the cards for a straight line, but of course scissors work just the same! 

Step 4: Printing out the Money. You will need:

20 copies (5 pages) of $500 

20 copies (5 pages) of $100 

30 copies (8 pages) of $50

50 copies (13 pages) of $20

40 copies (10 pages) of $10

40 copies (10 pages) of $5

40 copies (10 pages) of $1 

*These will be 1 sided* 

Step 5: This step is completely optional. I divided the houses into 4 to represent the 4 Hogwarts houses. I painted 8 houses in true blue color to represent Ravenclaw, 8 houses a dark forest green color for Slytherin, 8 houses golden yellow for Hufflepuff and 8 houses a dark/maroon red color for Gryffindor. 

There are 12 hotels, and painted them all gold. 

Step 6: The game pieces! While I kept the game pieces the same, I do plan on eventually changing some of them out. Some options include, buying Harry Potter Scene it game pieces off ebay, buying bracelet charms from craft stores, or making your own. Craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby sell charms like owls, brooms and those can be used to look like they are from Harry Potter. I've also seen people use polymer clay to make their own pieces which is pretty cool. 

Step 7: You can decorate your box! There are printables you can find on pinterest, or you can simply make your own! 

This is the end product!

I know this post was pretty lengthy but I hope it was helpful! :) 
This definitely costs more than buying an actual Monopoly game but I think it was worth it!
It was fun, and now you have Harry Potter Monopoly! I hope you enjoyed this post and found something helpful! 

Feel free to leave suggestions, questions or comments! :)

Until next time....

Adventure is out there!
Laura