DIY Catan map and pieces

So, a few nights ago, I was hanging out with my boyfriend and our friends. We were really bored and wanted to play this board game "Catan" that we are addicted to, but our other friend took his board with him. We had to think of a way to make Catan on the spot, so we decided to go to Walmart and see what we could find to make our own set!

Since I'm a nerd and love this game, I'm going to show you how we made our board! However, this DIY is not meant to replace a real Catan board, because believe me, those are worth the $49.99. If you want a cheap travel sized board, this will be perfect! 

Difficulty: Easy
Total time: 30 minutes
Total cost: less than $12

Materials:

• Construction paper in red, blue (fish tokens), green(wood), white(sheep), yellow(wheat), and black (ore) - $4.97
• Regular white printing paper
• Sheets of foam in red, blue, green, white, yellow, and black - $4.97 at Walmart
• Pipe cleaners in blue, red, green, and white - $1.97
• Small tokens for game pieces. I used buttons and different colored yarn.
• Sharpies: 1 black, 1 red, 1 silver.
• A hexagon shape to trace

The process:

Resource tiles

Step one is to start making your game tiles. You'll need to make 4 green, 4 yellow, 4 white, 3 red, 3 black, and 1 blue (for the fish lake pictured above).***Be careful to make the hexagons very exact, because if you don't then they won't fit together in the map formation.

Fish tiles

  Next you have to make your fishy tiles (if you want to play with fish). You'll do this by using one of your hex pieces, tracing one of the edges, and then moving the hex down an inch or so, then tracing the hex side again. It should look like the picture. I usually make six fish tiles, and use all  the numbers except 2 and 12. 

Ports

To make the ports you just cut the corners off of your foam pieces. Use matching colors for the ports (yellow wheat port, red clay port, etc), and purple for the 3:1 ports.

Number tiles

For the number tiles you will use the printer paper, and either cut them into squares or use a circle punch to make circles. The "perfect number" set in Catan has two of every number except 2 and 12.

Resource cards and development cards

Cut the different colored construction paper into squares that would be about the size of normal playing cards. To make the development cards (not pictured), cut up the white printing paper in the same way. As far as what to write on the development cards, that is up to you and your creativity in the game. I made five +1 victory point cards, a monopoly card, a year of plenty card, and a bunch of knights. ***fish are not pictured, but if you want fish you need to cut up the blue construction paper into small squares, and write either a 1,2, or 3 on them. There also need to be two "boots", which adds one victory point to the amount of VPs you have to get to win the game.

Player pieces and roads

Making the player pieces really is the most creative aspect of this DIY project. You can use any small trinket. The only rules about making these is that there must be a color distinction, and there has to be a distinction between settlements (5) and cities (4). Tying yarn to buttons was the most creative thing I could come up with on such a short time frame. For the roads, you'll just cut the pipecleaners into 15 small segments.

Finished Catan set

Now you can always have Catan, even when your one friend that has it takes it for the weekend! 

If you end up making your own variation of a homemade Catan board, or you have ideas for mine, OR if you just like it, tell me about it in the comments! :)

Stay crafty my friends