Busy Bag-Popcicle Match Game

Last weekend my niece came to visit and I was able to try out my first busy bag idea I made, the magnetic pom-pom activity, on her.  She seemed to like it.  We'll see if it is able to entertain her long term. 
This week I worked on making a color matching game.  It's a simple game of matching felt made popcicles with the same colored popcicle stick.  The original game was made by glue two pieces of felt together, however, I didn't feel that would last very long with a youngster so I decided to sew my mine to make sure they are sturdier. 
I purchased various colors of felt squares and colored popcicles.  I started by making a template of a popcicle.  I then traced the template onto the felt squares.  I doubled up the felt and cut out two popcicles at the same time. 

I then put a popcicle stick on the top of the popcicle and traced it.  By tracing and then sewing around the popcicle stick it will make a pocket for the kid to put the popcicle stick.

I chose to use the zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine.  I started by sewing around the stick I traced. Make sure your stitches stay on the outside of the tracing you did of your popcicle stick, otherwise your stick won't fit into the pocket for the stick when you are done.  I continued to sew around the outside of the popcicle to close the two pieces of felt up. 

I did this for all of the colors of felt I had.  I made six popcicles due to the fact that the set of colored popcicles I bought had 6 colors of popcicle sticks.  If this was a for a little bit older kid you could write the color word on a plain popcicle stick to make it a little bit more challenging.  For a two year old I liked the challenge of matching colors to colors right now.  I could always swap out harder sticks as time goes on.  

To store the game I recycled an old deli meat container I had.  It was the perfect size for holding the pieces for the game. 

I made two sets of these games while I was at it.  I suggest you either make a couple of sets for friends while you do it because changing out the thread on your sweing machine can get tedious or using invisible thread.  I found this to be an easy project to make the whole process took only about 30 minutes from start to finish (for 1 set).  I didn't worry about my sewing being perfect whiche made for the quick project.