Talking about custom inserts! Pimp your box!

[SpoonyBard]

As a fairly recent board-gamer I've been using standard default storage for the most part, but I recently learned foam board inserts are a thing, so I spent a weekend making one for my new copy of Elder Sign:

There's a little bit of lid lift because I'm bad at measuring, but otherwise it keeps all the pieces organized without the need for baggies, with extra space for expansions if I ever buy them.

I've also made a custom insert for my copy of Tiny Epic Dungeons, but I used cardstock there instead of foam board because there's just no extra room, even in the two boxes:

I have all the miniatures and the dungeon, item, spell, goblin, and minion cards, along with the disarm tokens, stored in the main game box. The character dividers are a bit jank, but my priority was to fit them all in one space but with something between them so they won't knock about, since I went through all the trouble to paint them.

Once card pile is taller than the other, since the shorter card pile contains all the expansion cards, I suppose I don't strictly need to keep them apart but eh, it works this way.

And I have all the various meeples and the character and boss cards in the expansion box. I do have some extra room which I may use for the extra boss meeples if I decide to get them once they're back in stock, but otherwise space is tight. I still use a baggie for the smallest wooden pieces

So what about everyone else? Do you bother with custom inserts, or are the default baggies and rubber bands enough?

 

[SpoonyBard]

I recently picked up SubTerra and done up an insert for that one too!

Some of the pieces look a little rough around the edges because I started to run out of foam board and had to rely on accumulated scraps for the final bits. This one comes with extra space for at least one of the expansions, probably Investigation if I can get it.

 

[Falselogic]

I haven't made my own but I've ordered quite a few from thebrokentoken.com.

They're balsa wood but work great.

 

[John]

I'm mostly done with my Lord of the Rings LCG box.

Spoiler: New box big pics

I learned a lot about staining/shellac'ing untreated wood, and just how many coats of both that birch plywood needs to look good (twice as much as you think). The colorfill on the etching was also an experience, as my heart sunk when it didn't wipe off immediately, and it looked like I had ruined the lid at first. I just needed to give it a few more passes with the wet paper towels, and only ended up with minimal color bleed.

If anyone wants to do something similar, look at One Sharp Joe Crafts over on Etsy for the box materials.

This will be a good follow-up to the Hobby Lobby Artist's Case that my wife made for me a decade ago (see pops below). I still prefer hers for the sentimental reasons, and that it's wholly unique, but I think I did an alright job on prettying my Etsy purchase up. She did her painting entirely with ink pens, after not doing anything artistic since she was a kid, and surprised me with it for a birthday present.

Spoiler: Original artist's case

 

[SpoonyBard]

Whoa, that kicks ass. I haven't looked into making inserts or full blown cases out of wood yet, mainly because I don't have the tools or experience for it, but I could totally see myself going down that road eventually.

 

[SpoonyBard]

After picking up the expansion to Tiny Epic Galaxies I wanted a storage option that put the base game, expansion and mini-expansions, in one box, and managed to make it work with like a centimeter of lid-lift:

Spoiler

I couldn't make dividers made of foam board work, it was just too thick, so I went for cardstock, which I barely managed to get everything to fit, with the player boards and instructions under everything, and again I got to put up with some lid lift, but it's better than having it all between two boxes. Even better, I got the player meeples in color-coded mini-boxes, which I greatly prefer to having them all loose in a single baggie.

Downside is I absolutely can't sleeve the cards with this setup, which is a shame because I recently picked up sleeves for the larger player boards, but I'll have to give up on them to get this storage to work.