DIY No-Sew Kid’s Fishing Set

Materials:

– Felt (I used scraps and 9×12″ sheets from my craft stash)

– Scissors (the sharper, the better)

– Hot glue gun and glue sticks

– Paper clips

– Magnet (it will need to be fairly strong.  I used one from a package I found in the craft department at Wal-Mart.  It works fairly well… more details in a minute…)

– Felt scraps or other stuffing material
– Dowel
– 1/4″ hole punch

Directions:

– Use the scissors to cut fish shapes out of the felt.  You will need two identical pieces of each fish.  I folded the felt in half and then cut the fish shapes.  I just cut the fish freehand, but you can do an image search on the web and print it off if you want a template if you want your fishing set more symmetrical.

– Glue one paper clip to the inside of each of the felt pieces.  For larger fish, I glued more than one paper clip, usually one at the head and one in the tail.

– Glue the front of each fish together with the paper clips on the inside.  Stuff the fish through the tail.  I used the scraps from cutting out my fish shapes to stuff them with.  Worked great, although they may be a bit heavier than than if I’d used batting or something similar.  Glue the tails together.

That’s it for the fish.  Just repeat a bazillion more times.  I think I ended up with about 25 fish.  I wanted enough fish in my fishing set that my boys could play together without fighting over them.  Hopefully, that will work… fingers crossed.

– For the reel, I used a dowel, a piece of baker’s twine, a small piece of paper and a magnet.

– I tied the baker’s twine around the dowel a couple times and then knotted it.  I secured it with a dot of glue to help keep it in place.

– To attach the magnet, I used my 1/4-inch hole punch to punch out a small circle from some scrapbook paper.  This is totally optional.  I punched a small hole in the middle of the paper circle.  I did this so you wouldn’t see the mess of glue and string on top of the magnet.  Thread the paper through the hole onto the baker’s twine.
– Use the hot glue to secure the twine to the top of the magnet.
– Slide the paper down the string and glue it on top of the magnet, covering the string.
– Then I put a small line of glue around the edge of the magnet to secure the paper to the magnet.  A small dot of glue around the little hole where the twine is coming out helps reinforce that as well.

We store ours in a small fabric bag (actually, it’s the bag a king-size sheet came in).  Little J didn’t quite get the concept, but he won’t tattle when Santa brings a new Fishing Set for Christmas either.  This is right up Big J’s alley and he’s gonna love it!  And Little J will grow into it.