Tell me a Story Game (DIY Gift and Travel Game)

Like to tell stories?  My kids love it when my husband and I makes up stories but every now and again we get stumped.  A few years back my children and I made the "Tell me a Story" game for a Father's Day present.  I printed out all the clip art from Microsoft free clipart site in black and white so my children could color the pictures for him. I also like i2clipart.
 

Then we cut the pictures out, glued them on different colors of card stock, and laminated them.  I ended up using 4 categories: Characters, Locations, Actions, Characters doing Actions.  We have loved playing this game ever since (its been at least 5 years now and we still love it)!  There are a ton of ways to play too.  Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Pick four cards (one from each category) and start the story without looking at them.  You can decide when to turn them over but can't look until then.  It makes for some funny twists in the story.

2. Pick any number of cards and look at them but don't show anyone else.  As you tell your story you reveal the cards at the appropriate moment.

3. Everyone picks a different category card and each take turns telling the story.

4. Everyone grabs about 4 or 5 cards.  Someone gets to be the referee and stop the person telling the story whenever they want and points to the next person who has to start with one of their cards (decide before hand if they are allowed to look at them first or not). However, you must stop when the referee says- no finishing the sentence!

5. Give each person a number of cards and tell them the story can be as long as you want but when you use your last card, you only have 2 sentences left to finish the story.

(I had to keep this story short so it would all fit but you can see how many different great turns this could take!)

This is a great game to play on road trips! It keeps everyone playing nicely together. Plus having some laughs is great medicine for a cranky car.