Go Fish!

Taylor's elementary school had their Spring Carnival a couple of weeks ago. It was your typical school carnival - bouncers, snow cones, pony rides and the obligatory carnival games. Some of the games were pretty lame (aren't there always a couple of lame games?), but the fishing game was a hit with my girls! We spent lots of tickets playing this game (it was easy enough for Miss Megan to win) and walked away with a handful of giant Pixie Sticks for our winning efforts.

Because the girls had so much fun fishing at the carnival, I decided to see if I could come up with my own version we could play at home. My version is pretty much like what they had at the carnival, but my fish are fabric instead of plastic. I found the super cute bucket and thought it would be perfect to store our catch in!

The best part? Except for the bucket, I already had everything I needed to make this. Woot! I love it when that happens! (Though, I'm always slightly disappointed that I don't get to fawn over all the pretty fabrics at the quilt store. I also had to raid hubby's tool chest for the "bobber". Shhh - don't tell!)

I made three fishing games in about 2 hours. My first official version of our fishing game was a birthday present for a friend of ours. The second, Turtle and Monkey get to keep. The third I've got in my store, so head on over! If you want to make your own, keep reading.

Here's what you'll need:

• Fabric fat quarters in a couple of different colors
• button magnets
• wooden dowel
• metal washer
• eye hook
• shell, fish and seahorse templates (I used my Cricut machine and the Paper Doll Dress Up Cartridge for my shapes)

Here's what you do:

1. Trace around your templates on the wrong side of your fabric (so the marks don't show). You'll need 2 pieces per fish. Trace one with "side A" of the template facing up, then flip it over and trace the second piece with "side B" facing up. Cut both pieces out (I cut mine with pinking shears for added detail)
2. Sew the pieces together, right sides out, leaving about a 1/4" seam allowance. Leave a small opening so that you can put the button magnet in. Once you've added the magnet, sew it closed.
3. Too keep the magnet in one general area, push it up where you want it to be inside the fish, then add a seam behind it to "trap" it. (if you look at the picture above, the seam is visible on the head of the blue fish"
4. To make the fishing pole, screw the eye hook into one end of the dowel. Tie a ribbon or string to the eye hook. On the other end of the string, tie the metal washer.