Make Your Own Fishing Game

For Max's birthday party back in December I put together a little fishing game for the kids to play. It was a big hit and they all absolutely loved it. It was so much fun watching the concentration on all of their cute little toddler faces as they tried to 'catch' the fish!

After the party I decided to make Max a more permanent version of the game using felt fish rather than paper ones. I orginally planned on including it in his Christmas stocking, but I didn't quite get there... Last week I finally got my butt into gear and made it for him. I would sit on the couch making it as Max watched ABC for Kids and he kept asking me 'those fishys for me?' and 'can I play with my fishys yet Mumma?'. When I did finish and let him have a go he was beyond excited!!

It was so easy to make that I can't believe I procrastinated for so long!

I started out by drawing a basic fish shape and then cutting it out to use as a template. Then I traced it onto my pieces of felt and cut out my little fishys.

I chose a fun bright orange embroidery thread to stitch them up with. I guess I was still stuck on the colours from Max's party :).

I hand stitched around each fish until I got to the pointy bit (I want to say it's nose, but I don't think fish have noses.... or maybe they do, I'll stick with 'the pointy bit'). Once I got there I added in a little metal hoop so that the magnet would have something to stick to.

I kept sewing around the fish until I only had a little gap left, then I stuffed the fish with hobbyfill and finished sewing them up.

I used the same fishing rods that I made for the party. They were super simple to make too. I wound some jute around the top of the balsa wood dowel and secured it with hot glue, hot glued a magnet to the end of the rope and added some washi tape to the base for decoration.

Max really loves playing with it! I'm always so thrilled when he loves handmade toys!! It's a great game for hand-eye co-ordination and takes a bit of concentration on his part :)

Tell me... Do you like making or buying handmade toys for your kids to play with?


{Come and join me on Facebook or Pinterest - you'll often find me pinning at 2am as I feed my hungry baby!}