Waking Up The Fooseball Table

Before we moved into our current house I was wandering through a local Salvation Army. Across the room I saw a Fooseball table! Fooseball is one of my favorite arcade type game (obviously aside from Whac-A-Mole and Skeeball).

When I saw the table I ran over and checked the price tag. $40. That seemed reasonable to me. We were about to move into a house that was over twice the size of what we were currently living in. A Fooseball table would fill up the space in the least practical way possible! SOLD!

And... BONUS. The players were black and a yellow-gold color. My husband went to Wake Forest and he is crazy about it. His dad went to Wake Forest too and the two of them are nuts about Wake. His dad has a whole room filled with Wake Forest paraphernalia.

Here is a little peak at the black and gold beauty. Sorry that the shredder under the table seems to get the top billing in this photo.

I called Scott and told him to come check it out. He did and in no time he had that thing packed up in his car and back into our small duplex. The fooseball table sat amongst a whole room of purchases that were just waiting to fill up our new house.

We moved in and put the table in the bonus room. I could be wrong but I think most people with a Fooseball table learn something pretty quick... just because you have a Fooseball table doesn't mean you will actually play Fooseball. That table gathered dust like a 30 year old man's collection of baseball cards (we will address this another time).

Scott had mentioned once that it would be cool to put jerseys on the players. He wanted one team to be his favorite Wake Forest basketball players of all time and one team to be the current players.

So, one Christmas I decided to surprise him with the jerseys. I also hoped that giving the players a new wardrobe might revive the table and make us want to play it.

List Of My Jersey Supplies:

• Black and gold felt
• Puffy paint (there may have been a better option here but I heart the 80s)
• Scissors
• Black thread and a needle (don't be scared off by the thought of sewing. I am not a seamstress in ANY WAY)

How I Made Those Fine Jerseys:

1. I got my felt and scissors out and made some jersey templates like the ones below. The center hole is where the player's head goes. I slipped them over a few players to make sure it was a good fit. 

2. I cut out 13 jerseys of each color

3. I busted out the puffy paint. Make sure to turn up the New Kids On The Block music whenever you use puffy paint. On the front I wrote "WF" and their jersey number. On the back I wrote their name and their number again. Then I played the drying game.

4. After they were all nice and dry I put them over the player's heads and grabbed the needle and thread. I just did two stitches on each side of the jersey to keep the jersey down. Then I tied a knot.

Tada! Here is how it turned out:

Scott was very happy and very surprised! I had tricked him into telling me what players he would put on the jerseys. He had fun coming up with them all. He really didn't seem to have any idea that I was asking him for a good reason.