Busy Bag Swap. Ever heard of it? I hadn't, so when I did hear about it and what it is I was completely enthused about it. You find a group of gals where each person things of something simple and inexpensive that will keep kids quite during sacrament meeting or say a doctors appointment. Then you make however many of that same activity as their are moms in the group. Then you get together and give one of your activities to each mom and you end up going home with several different games/activities.
We did this with 16 moms so we had 16 new and fun activities for our kids!
I am definitely going to share what the other moms had because they were fantastic ideas. But I wanted to share the one that I made first (mainly because it is the only one I actually have pictures of at the moment).
This is a matching game made entirely of felt and a small pieces of fusible Velcro (the grippy side).
It's matching so pretty self explanatory. The little Velcro pieces keep the flaps up so you can see what you have already found.
But the best part is that the matching sheets are interchangeable so you can always make more or just change it up when you want to.
First Presidency, Disney, Shapes, and Words were the matching categories I used. I also used cardstock for stability and had two per page (one category on the front side, one on the back) and then laminated them for extra endurance.
And then made 15 more of them...
It was simple to make, but a little daunting when you have to make 15, but I had great helpers. Mark helped me cut out all the blue front-side squares and Michele helped me put the Velcro pieces on so I could iron them down.
The absolute best part: It was all Mark's idea. I wasn't sure what to do and he came up with the general idea. Together we worked out the kinks and decided on a final project. I love that he is willing to help me out with things like this.
I used precut 9 x 12 inch felt a JoAnn (they were having a five for $1), I ended up buying 50 pieces. And the cashier had to ring each one up individually...took a while. So $10 for felt, $3 for Velcro, $3 for a fusible interfacing that I put on the backside of the front piece to give added support, and whatever else for the cardstock, laminating sheets, and thread (which I had on hand). So I think I roughly spent $1 per matching game. Boo ya.
