Memory game

Having been inspired by much craftiness found on Pinterest, a few weeks ago I started a project. Julie has been "playing" a matching game on the computer, but usually unsuccessfully. I realized that she was at a perfect age to play the game "Memory." Not wanting to buy a commercial version, I decided to make my own.


I started by trolling Google Images for coloring-page style graphic images of things Julie was already familiar with, and liked. Various animals, tools, foods, etc. I kept meaning to stop, but eventually I ended up with 18 images with which I was satisfied.


(Notice the little smudge on the bottom edge of the fish, below its fin? I picked up that card -- pre-coloring -- while I was in the middle of making pizza sauce one night. It's tomato paste. The match doesn't have a smudge, but I forgot to pay enough attention to put that one on top for the photo.)

I arranged them on a page and sized them proportionately to each other, then printed two of each page on white cardstock. While watching TV the next couple of nights, I colored them in. Instead of doing on page at a time, I did both flowers, then both snowflakes, then both elephants, etc. to make sure they turned out identical with the exact same crayons.

Once they were all colored in, I cut them up with a paper cutter. At that point, I realized that while the images were pretty proportionate to each other, some were taller or wider, and not quite square. In other words, I had unequal shaped final products, and wasn't sure what to do. I also wasn't sure what image/pattern to use on the backs of the cards, so that they weren't just plain white. Ben had the perfect solution to both problems (that I can't believe I didn't think of myself): mount them on scrapbook paper. Duh.

So I had two each of 18 images, totally 36. I had a book of scrapbook paper that included three sheets of each design. I needed to fit 12 cards on each sheet. I checked all my colored images, and it turned out that none of them were larger than 3"x4" (which would have been a bit insane if they had been). I could do it without having to go buy paper.

So I pulled out my paper cutter again and cut up the scrapbook paper. Then I grabbed a gluestick and went to work. Normally I might use double stick tape, but I was planning on laminating these cards, and I didn't want strips of tape bulking up the layers.

The next day I went to Office Max and got them laminated. That night (again, while watching TV), I cut them up with my paper cutter. The project was done, and I'd only started it about three days earlier!


They're a little bigger than I originally envisioned, and 18 pairs is a bit much for a three-year-old to start with. I usually only put out about half of them at a time for her, but she likes it. And I'm pretty pleased with my creation.


If you like this idea, and don't want to hunt for images yourself, you can use the ones I collected, by clicking here.