I found this very cute idea in an issue of Woman’s Day Magazine. I knew immediately we just had to make these for the kids in our family for Christmas. (And little do my kiddos know that they helped make one for their very own as well!)
You will need 8 playing pieces – 4 ladybugs and 4 bumble bees and a gameboard/bag for each game.
The first step is to gather rocks. We don’t live near a place that we could find our own in nature, but we do live near a rock seller. We went there, explained what we wanted them for, and asked how much approximately 50 fairly flat river bed rocks were. The very nice gentleman told us he wanted absolutely nothing for them, just for us to remember him in the future. Wow! (If you live in Arkansas – contact me – I’d love to send business his way!) A side benefit of going there was that my kids had a blast picking them out of the huge mound, sliding, rolling, and generally getting filthy in it! We picked fairly large rocks so that the smallest of our family couldn’t get them in their mouths.
We brought our treasures home and I let the kids wash them in a pan at the table. We let them dry and then began the painting.
Paint them with acrylics.
After they dried we used permanent markers to put on the details. I let the kids help – the imperfections just make them all the more charming.
We used white paint to add the other details.
We then went through the same process for the yellow bumble bee pieces.
Next we drew a tic-tac-toe board with permanent marker on one side of a rectangular piece of material. It was at this point that my kids jumped at the chance to play. This was SO not posed. It’s a good sign that the kiddos in our family will enjoy it!
I folded the top edge over and sewed a straight line all the way across leaving a tube in order to run a ribbon through it for a drawstring. I used a drawstring from some old pajamas. A safety pin stuck in one end makes it easier to push the string through the tube.
I folded over the bag and sewed the bottom and side (making sure to leave the space where the ribbon comes out.)
Put your game pieces in your bag and you have a great homemade, cheap present!
My kids loved helping and then had a blast playing with it when we were all done. It can be as fancy – buying special material and lots of frilly glittery details – or as simple – I used an old shower curtain cut up for the bags – as you want. Just be sure to comment here with your link if you try it out – I’d love to see your version!
