As we have submerged ourselves in all things summer, including rainy Florida days, we’re finding ourselves playing lots of card games. My older daughter loves to play Uno and Skip-Bo but my younger one, did a number on some of the cards…apparently cards taste fantastic. Who knew?
But the boxes (which to be honest, weren’t in great shape even before her teething, destructive fingers did their thing) make me batty. No closing flaps survive little hands and rubber-banded decks inevitably lead to replacement decks. #notfrugal

I searched online for card holders, card boxes, Uno card holders, anything that I could use that was more sturdy than the factory boxes these games come in. Nada.

I figured Pinterest surely had some genius, albeit “duh, why didn’t I think of that” Ikea hack or something. Nope.

Not a single thing on Etsy. I mean, come ON! What the what? In this age of being green and not tossing things into a landfill, it didn’t seem crazy that people might want longer lasting card holders, right? Miss Frugal is not about to buy a whole new deck of cards everytime someone is careless and kills the cardboard box. Miss Fancy can’t handle a dilapidated or taped up box. No bueno.

Alas, I never found a perfectly pretty or fancy solution. I did however, find a perfectly cheap solution that works for what we needed.

I found these plastic index card boxes at Publix for about a buck a piece. I grabbed 3 of them since we have Uno, Skip-Bo and Phase 10. I wanted to fancy them up a bit but realized rather quickly that I was wasting my time with this insanity. This is a functional exercise, Kara. Get it together.

I opted to print the corresponding logos on sticker paper and slap them on the boxes for easy game recognition. You could just as easily use a sharpie, like, I dunno, normal people?

I actually did this nearly two years ago (and never got around to blogging about it) but since we have been playing a lot lately, and my cheap, little fix was still going strong, I decided it was worth sharing.

If you play any of these games, you know they are large decks of cards. These index card holders miraculously manage to neatly hold each of these games, despite their varying sizes.

In the future, I’d prefer the manufacturer offer an always available version of their games with a sturdy case and not just some silly limited time offer version in a tin. I’d be willing to pay a few extra bucks to avoid sporting busted up cases.

In the meantime, this works for us. Happy summer gaming!