Games & Julie's Featured Vid

[lingovise]

So has everyone had a chance to watch Julie's Top 10 Featured Designer Video (https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/index.php/2014/01/in-the-spotlight-julie-billingsley/) yet??!! we're HUGE game freaks at my house and so, I of course loved it! and hey, Julie!! I've been looking and looking for a card holder like the one you show on your video... but with no luck! so do me a huge favor and hook a sistah up!! because, seriously. card holding is by far one of the most frustrating aspects [ie: nuclear meltdown triggers] for our 4 year old, so I know he'll totally looooove something like that :D

I've never heard of Dutch Blitz [Julie's #1] before... but we grew up playing a card game called Nertz. which I think sounds like the same idea. omg! sooo fun! it was always the go to game for huge family get togethers and often had upwards of 15 people playing - CRAZY!! and two of my still favorite big group games are Pictionary and Scattergories... although Apples to Apples is on my list to buy.

and Rummikub! we love that one and don't anyone else who plays! another fun Rummy based card game that the hubster & I love is ABC Rummy.

my boys are still pretty little [7, 4 & 2] so we haven't been brave enough to try out Ticket to Ride, but am hoping we can start that one up in the next year or so.

here are our family faves at the moment : Trouble, Slamwich, Spot It, Sorry!, Storycubes, Twister, & Go Fish. i'm excited that both of my older boys have birthdays coming up and already have Enchanted Forest, Race to the Roof, Operation & Qwirkle tucked away and ready to add to our family game collection!

i'm always on the look out to rediscover old favorites or new [to me] games... so what are some your family favorites??

[Libby Pritchett]

We love games, too!!!

A couple of our faves that haven't already been mentioned are Sharp Shooters and SkipBo.

I'm also a big fan of Yahtzee, but my family doesn't love that one... too much math for their tastes. LOL

[scrap2day]

Whoonu and Scribblish

[glumirk]

What a fun top 10!

We love Canasta. We play it just as a couple (where you draw 2 instead of 1) and it's the only game that gets us to throw cards at each other.

We also love Cribbage.

My oldest is 4, so we mostly play a lot of Crazy 8's and Go Fish, but we just got one of those Uno Attack games, and he loves that too. I'm excited for the day that we can play more advanced games as a family! So fun!

p.s. There are 5 kids in my family and no one would ever play a game with me, so my mom would agree to play Rummikub and we had it down to a science. I should pull it out while she's here with us. Thanks for the reminder!

[Julie Billingsley]

aw, Loni, glad you liked the video. I haven't heard of Nertz... I'll have to look into that! With Dutch Blitz (http://www.amazon.com/Dutch-Blitz-201/dp/B000BBU0KS/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1390766435&sr=1-1&keywords=dutch+blitz)you are only suppose to play 2-4 players, but with two sets of cards I imagine you could play a VERY crazy game with 8 players. :)

Here is the card holder (http://www.amazon.com/Ableware-15-Playing-Card-Holder/dp/B000TYO1XO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390765800&sr=8-1&keywords=ableware+15+playing+card+holder). It holds a bunch of cards, it says it's 15" long and that seems right.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gdCeO0w6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg (http://www.amazon.com/Ableware-15-Playing-Card-Holder/dp/B000TYO1XO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390765800&sr=8-1&keywords=ableware+15+playing+card+holder)
My son is 10 and has had this holder for a year. We use it all the time. Only wish I would have found it sooner, because you know the drama of dropping the cards, etc. LOL

One game that I haven't played, but really want to is Blokus (http://www.amazon.com/Mattel-R1983-Blokus-Game/dp/B001P06GX4/ref=sr_1_51?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1390766301&sr=1-51&keywords=board+games) It's next up on for my game purchases. It's ages 5+.

Love that you are a gamer too! :) We've always enjoyed playing games because with our boys being so far apart in age (22 and 10) it's hard to find something that interests everyone... so games have become our way to do something together. :)

[Libby Pritchett]

I'll so be getting a card holder when Chloe is a little older. When my oldest (16) was little, my ex-FIL made her a nice little wooden card holder that looked almost exactly like that. It was SUCH a life-saver!

I'm gonna have to stock up on some family-friendly little kid games in the next couple of years because I fully intend to teach Chloe to love family games.

[catgoddess]

We play Rummikub! We love it. I scrapped a page about it last year I think. We also play Euchre.

[jak]

Oooh, I loved games as a kid and finally now my oldest (who is 7) can play some of them I'm getting to play them again. We love Scrabble, Uno (card game), Memory and just lately we've been playing good old fashioned marbles. He can beat me at all of them!

[Jengerbread88]

We love Sorry!, Uno, SkipBo... And one of our favorites to play as a family is a game called Eye To Eye. We're looking at getting the expansion for it (from a company called SimplyFun. They're AWESOME). Basically, you have a topic, and everyone writes down 3 answers they think that others will see "eye to eye" with them on-- if you match with someone else, you can cross it off. If you have an answer that doesn't have a match, you have to take a block. The game ends when your pyramid is built (person who builds the full pyramid loses, person with the least blocks wins), and it's cool to see how similarly (or differently) you think with the rest of the group.

BF and I both like a HORRIBLE (like truly, it's an awful, depraved game) called Cards Against Humanity. Think Apples to Apples, but very.... well, uh, not for those who are easily offended. Because it's terrible. But, in the right atmosphere and with the right friends, it's actually a really funny game. Anyway, it has a ton of official and unofficial (Crabs Against Humidity) expansion packs that we still need to get.

[MamaBee]

We are just getting into games with Jake... he loves to play scrabble, but we don't keep score since at six, he doesn't know how to spell many big words... haha. Most of our games are educational and I used them during our school time... He also loves to play The Family Farm - kind of like monopoly with a farm theme... Mind your Manners... Sum Swamp (adding and subtracting)... Somebody game (parts of the body)... brainbox's all around the world and USA (geography)... etc.

We are also huge fans of ThinkFun games... with J being an only child and very logical, he loves these thinking games and takes them everywhere. Rush Hour, Chocolate Fix, Math Dice, Shape By Shape, Zingo... he can play by himself and the higher levels are even very challenging for me... sometimes we play them together - see who can see win first... :)

And of course Sticky Learning games... sold here at SSD... :D

[fifilur]

So far the games we've played have been memory and lotto. But Noah turns six soon so we should be able to play more games now that I can enjoy as well. Will have to look into getting some. Really fun to hear what everyone's playing, My friends and I used to play different games whenever we got together, but then we all had kids and the wine and gamenights kind of turned into playdates for the kids.

[Robin Carlton]

Our favorites right now are...

http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/Images/Games/Display/GAMEWRIGHT-415.jpg

http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/Images/Games/Display/GAMEWRIGHT-317.jpg

We LOOOVE these because rather than someone winning, you work together and either win as a team or lose as a team. We play with kids ages 8+ and all of us love these games. They are SOOOO fun!

Dicecapades is really fun too and Cranium is great as well. Both are sorta mishmash games with lots of activities and questions and stuff.

We LOVE games in my house too!

[NeverendingJen]

Cranium, Ticket to Ride, Phase 10, Yahtzee, Hand & Foot, so many more...we are game FREAKS.