I would say it was the other day, but it was likely a year ago when I was hanging out in a Cracker Barrel with my mom, sister and two of my nieces. They were bored so we played tic tac toe on their kids menus. I was surprised at how bad they were at tic tac toe. Luckily (for them) my mom mostly played against them and would nicely let them win. I guarantee if I had started playing them first it would have been slaughter-town and I don’t really need to make a 6 and 7 year old cry do I?
So since I have this memory of them playing tic tac toe, and know that it’s a surprisingly challenging game for them AND after seeing this idea a couple of times on pinterest I knew this would be a feature in this year’s handmade holidays. I am an amazon affiliate and I will earn a small commission if you make a qualifying purchase after clicking amazon links.
My older niece likes Minecraft and the younger one likes Super Mario. So I figured a set based on those would be a huge hit. I mean, or not, they aren’t video games, but maybe they’ll like them! Truth be told, I had a blast making these so I maybe don’t mind if it isn’t as much of a hit?
I didn’t have any of the supplies of rocks or paint markers to decorate the rocks. I did consider going outside and finding rocks to paint and using the acrylic paint I already have but I kept seeing this paint markers online when I would look at painted rocks so I decided to splurge on this investment and let y’all know if it’s a worthy investment or not.
It’s worthy.
TBH, I would have hated to try to pull off what I was able to create with the markers with a paintbrush. The markers are very precise and easy to use. I also like that I can use them for future projects on metal, glass, other rocks, etc.
I purchased this box of rocks. I felt silly to purchase rocks, but it was much easier than going outside and finding them. It was nice to have SO many rocks to chose from too. They were all flat and I got a lot of sizes. I actually ended up using the smallest size to make the pieces and I thought I would have chosen the larger size. The fantastic markers I purchased were these.
I tried to chose simple things since my space was small and I was going to have to repeat it 5 times. Since tic tac toe is a 9 piece board, each opponent would need 5 pieces. I had to spend some time figuring that out, which is why I’m pointing it out so you don’t have to! I tried to pick out 10 rocks for each set that were relatively similar to each other in size.
I started with the Minecraft set. Not sure how well the markers would work I went with the creeper guy first. I used green and I just painted on a square in the middle of the rock. I couldn’t believe the coverage. It was one coat.
To make the creeper face was a little hard given my space, but I did my best and just kind of made dots and then I squared them out. For the second set of the Minecraft pieces I made TNT blocks. First I made a silver square, then a red line/rectangle at both the top and bottom and then I wrote TNT in black. Pretty straightforward!
For the Super Mario pieces I made superstars and the piranha plant. The superstar was simple with just yellow and making a star, then adding black eyes. For the piranha plant I started with a half moon shape in red in the middle/upper middle of the rock. Then I added the white lips and teeth and polka dots and I finished it off with the green stem and leaves.
Now that my pieces were made I needed a little board and bag to hold them in! This is where I 100% used what I already had on hand. I had some leftover felt from one of my I can Make that Monday projects and I cut out two 3″x3″ squares. Then I sewed a hash on them with zig zag stitch to create a board. If you wanted to skip the whole sewing part of this project, you could definitely just draw a hash onto a ziplock baggie. I *almost* did this but I’m glad I kept making the bags. Plus it took me less than 15 minutes total for the bags.
I founds some random blue fleece and laid my boards on top of it to eyeball cutting out some pouches. You can see in the picture above I actually folded the material up so I could sew less. I also made sure to leave enough room at the top to fold that down to create a casing that the drawstring can go through. Fleece, felt or even tee shirt material are good choices for the fabric because you don’t have to worry about fraying.
Once those were cut out I folded down the tops and sewed along the bottom of the folds so I could create a casing!
Then on the outside of the pouch I placed where I wanted the board and pinned it into place. I sewed around the edges in a zig zag stitch. Once this was done I flipped the pouch inside out and sewed along the sides being sure to not sew the very top where my casing was.
I made coordinating drawstrings to match the boards that were on the front of the pouches. I did this with a crochet hook and just making a chain. You can use shoestring, ribbon, braided yarn, knitted icord – whatever you want! Once I created my drawstring I threaded it through the casing with a big saftey pin.
Honestly for kind of winging the board game pouches, I was pretty impressed! I think the standout thing was matching the drawstring to the board. If I would have had it, I would have loved to have used a coordinating fabric to the theme of the tic tac toe. Like, a Minecraft fabric and a Super Mario fabric. It could have been the dominate fabric and the board could have still been neutral or a solid color. Regardless, I love it!
What do you guys think? Would you let your niece win in a battle of Minecraft Tic Tac Toe or would you be relentless and take that middle spot because for some reason they chose a corner? Whatever your tic tac toe strategy these sets were so much fun to make and only took me about an hour total to create two! Also should be noted I did seal the rocks with clear nail polish. I’m not sure it was necessary as the paint wasn’t chipping away but I figured I had worked so hard on the designs I could make a minimal effort to protect them.
What designs will you come up with for your tic tac toe game? I could see me making a set for myself with yarn balls and cats. I could make my husband one of two of his favorite things – photography (cameras) and music (guitars). The possibilities are really endless! Share with me on socials what you come up with, I’d love to see them! If you loved this post share it with a friend and buy me a coffee! It helps keep the website ad free!
xoxo
-Robin
