Game Bag for the little gameiac

Happy 2013! I have so many posts stored up in my head that I have been itching to write. But at the same time I am coming off of the holiday high, as it were, enjoying my quiet-kids-asleep-time doing things like sitting on my rear reading a good book or fanfiction, cleaning or playing with my new camera. My sister recently recruited me for a writing project and since I've been writing and editing... I decided that it is long past time to start writing those posts I've told you about.

So for the first post of the New Year, I wanted to share the game bag with you that I made for my little man.

My 5 year old has been into every game he can get his hands on! Really! I don't know any other 5 year old who can win at Solitaire. Go Fish. Crazy 8s. War. All the age-appropriate board games out there and recently started mastering checkers.

Knowing that, when I saw the game bag at I Can Teach My Child, I knew I had to make one too! I  did modify it from the original idea though, of course. I chose to make a checker board on one side and a tic-tac-toe on the other side. I was also thinking that in a year or so when he is interested in tackling chess, I can add some pieces from an old game in the bag too. Here is what I did:

I bought at pillow case from the Goodwill store for $1.99. And then I decided that the best way to make my game boards was from ribbon, so I had to buy that too. Then I got to gluing, which made sewing the pieces much easier.

The Checker board was a little complicated. I was hoping that I could weave the ribbon in and out of the fabric, but it proved to be not as simple. I settled for weaving every even row and gluing squares for the odd rows. Before I started slicing with my Xacto knife I put my quilting cutting board in the pillow case and used the ruler shown to measure out each row.

The tic-tac-toe side was a quickie. I cut the ribbon, placed it where I wanted and glued.

Once each of these boards were completed and the glue dry, I was able to easily sew the ribbons on. I also cut the top of the pillow case off (it was a king size) so it wouldn't be so large and I have extra material for another project! I bought a yard of cord for $1 and sewed a seam and button hole for a closure.

On to the pieces! For the tic-tac-toe X and O I decided to use some foam pages that I had in my art supply. I printed out the X and O as a template and used a cutting board to slice them up. It took me about an hour to get this done... but in all fairness I was watching tv at the same time so it would have been a lot quicker if I had ruled out multitasking.

For the checker board pieces. I bought wood circles at the craft store and used a sample of red paint (that I already had) and black spray paint (that I also already had).

As you can see, I made good use of my Black Friday ads by painting on them.

When the paint was dry. I used a metalic sharpe that I had on had to draw crowns on the pieces. Just like the real thing!

So the end result was a game bag with pieces!

 Hope you enjoyed reading! Have you made anything recently that sprung from a good idea?

Shared at: Shine on Friday, Show and Tell, I should be mopping the floor,