Fish Busy Bag

I made this gift for a friend's child a month or so ago. It was inspired by this Corduroy bag.  I love the idea of themed busy bag.  I made my book bag around fish, and I love the way it turned out. The book I included was Rainbow Fish, one of my kids' favorite books.

These little fishes all fit inside the clear vinyl fish tank, which I sewed directly onto a tote bag that I purchased.

 

 

I made a set of under-the-sea themed finger puppets and put them in a little bag.   I used printable transfer paper to make them this time instead of printable fabric and it worked pretty well. 

I made a set of matching card and put them in the little bag as well.

It's a cute little set, don't you think?  Would you like to make your own?  Keep reading to find out how I made mine and find out where to download the free template for the fish tank, fish, and matching cards.

You'll have to forgive me because I don't have a tutorial for this one.  But I promise it's easy, ok?

The matching cards are just printed out on regular printer paper, cut out, and then laminated. Easy peasy, right?

 

Now for the bag itself.  I started with a tote bag that I purchased. I printed out the fish bowl (that I drew and scanned into the computer) on printable fabric and then used pellon to adhere it to the tote bag.  It's basically the same as making these finger puppets.  Print out the fish bowl.  Iron on Pellon.  Then iron onto the tote bag. 

Then I used my sewing machine to attach a vinyl piece the same size over the fish bowl.  I also added a little bias tape to the top edge of the 'bowl' vinyl cover.  Sewing around the edge of the fish bowl made a simple pocket.

I used printable transfer paper to transfer the fish to felt. Which of course means that these lovely little guys adhere to a felt board!

I apologize again for the lack of detail on this post.  Normally I take more pictures while I am making things, but I didn't have a chance to this time.  So please let me know if you have any questions or something isn't clear.

Now for the link that you've all been waiting for...the free fish bowl template!  It is a PDF of the fish, fish bowl, and the matching cards.  You can also buy the template for the finger puppets here.

If you use this template to make your own busy bag I'd love to hear about it.  Don't forget to follow Snugglebug University here or on facebook for more great projects.