Joy of Sets Tic Tac Toe Challenge Blog – #JOSTTT008 and Double Trouble Challenge

 

Good morning lovely crafters.

I can’t believe it’s already time for August’s Joy of Sets Tic Tac Toe challenge ~JOSTTT008.

August’s grid has been designed by the lovely Kaylin Krawczyk and as you can see has lots of fun elements for you to use.

This month we are delighted to be teaming up with the ‘Double Trouble Challenge’ They have provided us with additional elements which, if you include them in your project, means you have the option to enter it into their blog challenge too.

It sounds a little confusing but all of the information you need is here in the #JOSTTT008 blog post. It would be great if you choose to create a project which means you can enter both challenges but if it seems too daunting you can easily just follow our grid as normal.

As soon as I saw this month’s grid the idea for this project jumped into my head and I had such a lot of fun working out the details and creating it.

The best job I ever had was being a Play Leader in my local community centre, helping to run a setting which provided early years education for 2 1/2 to 5 year olds. I loved the whole process of helping to guide these tiny human beings through their first formal learning experiences and planning tailored activities to help each of them develop and grow in their own special ways. Creating educational resources for them was part of the experience and I spent many hours each month creating and developing new activities for them to engage with and explore. Making this project was like stepping back in time and reliving the fun.

My beautiful grandson is starting his preschool year after the summer and is a little nervous about taking this big step so I decided to create something for him to take with him on his first day that he could enjoy sharing with his new classmates. He loves playing interactive games, especially if they involve counting and numbers. He also loves animals so I used these as the basis for my project.

The line I chose from Kaylin’s grid was the middle horizontal line ‘Square’ ‘Animal’ ‘Emboss’ but as you’ll see when you look at the other photo’s it also fits the left to right diagonal and bottom horizontal lines too.

The box was stamped using Concord and 9th’s Furry Friends stamp set and I also used their plaid background stamp for the decorative layers on the front. The sentiment and name on the front  were stamped in Soot Black Distress Oxide Ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder to make them shiny.

When he opens the box, Millar will find a special card game made just for him….

There are a set of 10 interactive cards which have pictures of 1 -10 animal faces on the front for him to count.

On the edge of each of the cards there is a tab for him to pull which opens a ‘secret’ door on the back……

… and behind the secret door is the numeral corresponding to the number of images on the front also a corresponding number of stars.

Millar’s Aunt and Uncle are both scientists and he has been telling us lately that he is going to be one too when he grows up so I used the fabulous fun  ‘Eureka’ stamp set from Clearly Besotted to add some motivational/reward messages which are also revealed when the tab is pulled.

I was a little concerned that the card fronts, especially for the smaller numbers, were a little too bare but decided to leave them that way so not to distract from the animal faces to be counted. I made up for it by creating a riot of colour on the back using bright primary coloured ink and the plaid background stamp from Concord & 9th to create them.  I also die cut the numbers and stars out of coordinating coloured card.

As the cards are designed for little people who are still developing their fine motor skills and who may still be exploring which is their dominant hand, I decided to make put half of the pull tabs on the right and half on the left edges of the cards.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my post today. If you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear them and if you have any other ideas for games or activities I can make please share them with me.

This is such a fun challenge to take part in and the other design team members have made lots of beautiful projects to inspire you.  It would be great if you could hop over to the Tic Tac Toe blog to see them all (you can use this link )  hopefully you’ll be tempted to choose a line from the grid, join in and share your own crafty make with us.

Crafty Hugs

Anne-Marie x