Tic Tac Toe, Noughts and Crosses and buttons DIY

One of the things I always remember as a child was my Nans then my Mums button tin.  Such a source of amazement and wonder sorting through and playing with the buttons. Plus they came in handy for when you needed buttons of course. Over the past years I have slowly built up my own tin and it still feels like a wonder going through and discovering the right button for what you need or imagining what they belong on.

Today though, I was on the search for buttons for a game of noughts and crosses as we tend to call Tic Tac Toe here in England.


The idea came about knowing I had a few of these little cotton drawstring bags left over from another project a while ago. Having seen little games in similar bags I set out to make a set of my own for something the granddaughters could possibly play with on a rainy day or when bored.

Went for a rummage through my bag of vinyl and heat transfer vinyl scraps and found a perfect size of silver holographic HTV. It was fairly quick and easy to make up the grid in Cricut design space by manipulating squares into long lines and welding them together when in the right layout.

Pressed the HTV onto the drawstring bag and filled with7 buttons each of 2 colour flower buttons. I know you don't need 7 for a game but a few are probably at some point going to get lost.  If they all do then the girls will just have to discover the delights of a button tin themselves and come and find some new ones.

All in all a quick and easy satisfying project. All things were on hand just laying around my craft area somewhere. I'm really embracing this use what you have challenge I have myself doing.  It's making me look at things a little differently and thinking up new ways to use older supplies.

Thinking about it if you didn't have or can't use HTV you could used fabric paint or markers to make up the grid, It really is quite adaptable. All sorts of things could be used for the counters to.  Obviously needing to be age appropriate due to choking hazard etc.

Using what I have

Been a bit of a theme around here at the moment is using more of what is on hand rather than dashing out and buying more things to make things with.  While looking for bookmark ideas I came across Doodlecrafts foam bookmarks made with the Cricut maker. Given the simplicity of the shape, I don't think you need a Cricut for cutting out the foam but it did make things quicker and more simple.

I got 4 bookmarks out of one A4 sheet of craft foam and probably could have managed another 2 on what was left over.

 

The metallic vinyl was a rose gold colour from Teckwrap. There have been some hit and miss reviews on this product on Amazon. It has a very thin plastic covering on the protect the finish and a lot of people miss taking it off and it causes the machine to not cut it properly.  Again you don't necessarily need to use a Cricut, you could use a die cutting machine or even hand cut out some design. 

Going to hunt out some ribbon or twine for these and start putting them to use. 

All in all, it's a fairly quick project that could be used for a gift for someone or a way of treating yourself with a new bookmark and a way to maybe use up a half sheet of foam or scraps if it is big enough to fit one of these on. The finished measurements at 6 inches tall by 2 inches wide.