Homemade Skylanders Skystones

So I don't know how many people have kids who are into the popular kids game Skylanders but my kids definitely are in that group.  I have to admit I enjoy the game myself and I think it is a brilliant idea.  For those who don't know basically the kid gets toy figures that when placed on a "Portal" or a game pad allows them to play that character in the game.  

Now in the game there are also a few mini games and my kids love them.  One specific game is called "Skystones"  

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Skystones is a game where you and an opponent fill a 3x3 board with Skystones. The objective is to have more Skystones on the board than you opponent by the time the board is filled up.

To overtake your opponent's Skystone, you must place a stone with more arrows next to their stone. If you place a stone with more arrows against the side of your opponents stone that has lesser arrows, the Skystone with the most arrows will then overtake the lesser stone, and count as a stone for your side. 

Each player only uses five Skystones for each game. Before the game starts, you can change the stones you're holding.  Whoever owns the most Skystones on the board at the end wins.

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Now my kids, when they discovered the game, took time to draw their own pieces because they loved them so much but they didn't hold up well since they were just on paper.  The other day I got an idea on how to make them a more durable version myself.

First thing I did was find the images of all of the different Skystones and copied them into a computer paint program to edit them for detail.  I decided on the general size of each stone as being about 2 inches by 2 inches.  I chose only to make the pieces  have seen my kids actually play with which totals 24 out of a possible 80 Skystone designs.

Next after getting all of the images edited to my liking I printed them out on plain white paper.  I then measured each piece and cut it out.  to make each piece strong and sturdy. I glued them to poster board which I doubled up for thickness.  On the reverse side I put the corresponding piece.  I came up with the idea of using a treasure chest to put them in and was lucky enough to find a chest at a family members home.  Other options would have been EBAY or Amazon.com.

This is what I used.

It measures 2 inches deep inside the box not counting the lid and about 4.5 inches by 2.5 inches inside along the bottom.

I decided to put a divider between the two decks of cards for easier storage and sorting.

Finally I took a piece of plain white paper and cut it to fit the top curved portion of the lid.  Measured it out and created a Skystones Logo as a label for the box.

I printed it out and glued it to the top of the box.  Here is the final result.

My kids love it and the can play a game they love without being on the video game all the time which is nice. If you have any questions feel free to let me know.  And thanks so much for reading.

-Jason