Some vendors use seals, or circular stickers, to keep their game board boxes closed during shipping. The good ones come off easily and leave no sticky residue. But some will rip the paper covers or leave a messy goo behind. This is how I deal with these stickers.

First, adhesives react to hot and cold. Work in a warm environment, and you can even run a hair dryer over the spot to soften the glue. Don’t linger and keep your distance: you just want gentle warming, because too much heat can damage the box. For this box I only had to bump up the thermostat to drive away the bitter February chill.

Speaking of gentleness, don’t use force when removing the sticker. Work slowly and carefully to prevent damage to your board game box. Use a fingernail or the sharp edge of a crafting blade to gently raise all the edges and work from the outside in. If there is any resistance, stop! Work along another edge and work your way from the spots that remove easily and approach the stubborn from the opposite direction. Sometimes the angle of removal is key: pulling horizontal instead of lifting up vertically.

If the sticker is not going to come off without damage, it’s better to just cleanly slice it so the box opens, and then press the cut edges down and leave it alone so at least it looks neat. So I used a thin sharp craft knife to get the cleanest possible cut in case I have to leave it in place.

For my demo I’m using Fest Season since I read that backers were experiencing box damage when attempting to remove the seals. The video of my technique was filmed after removing the first five stickers and I wanted to share the method in the hopes of saving board gamers some grief.