In order to give guests the optimal experience at your vacation rental, it’s important to pay attention to those little extras. Years ago, before we had our own place, we stayed at a vacation rental in the area of Luray, Virginia. When we arrived, the owner had left us a basket of goodies, including a pound cake she had baked, herself. Between that and the generous stack of white towels, we were immediately predisposed to enjoy our stay. We felt very welcome.

Now that we are sharing Sadler House with guests, we try to carry on our own gift basket tradition. We aren’t living next door, so we can’t bake each guest a fresh pound cake. Instead, I’ve tried to come up with fun little crafts that our guests will find both charming and useful. We hope that these little touches and a welcome card will make show our guests how thankful we are to be hosting them.

Recently, I was scrolling through Pinterest and I came to a stop at this craft by Megan at the blog Balancing Home. The product was an adorable little tic tac toe set that was made from rocks and carried in a teeny burlap bag.

While I was reading the post, I started pondering how I might incorporate this craft into my gift baskets. I resolved to find some sort of rocks and burlap bags on my next trip to the craft store and give it a go.

Well, we all know you rarely find exactly what you’re looking for, right? Instead of the natural burlap bags, I happened upon a stack of sea foam green ones on clearance in the cake decorating aisle, of all places. I got a bunch of them for 50 cents each. The color reminded me a bit of a Tiffany box, and I hatched a plan to make my tic tac toe kit a little fancier. Here’s what I did, and I hope you love the results as much as I do!

Supplies:

A burlap bag – mine is 6″ x 7″

A squeezable tube of fabric paint

E6000 glue

10 Flat glass decorator beads (in the floral aisle) – only 6 are pictured here

3/4 inch medium or light-duty self-adhesive felt pads

5/8 inch hole punch

Printer and cardstock

This is definitely a case where your project quickly becomes very inexpensive if you make a few of them. The glue, beads, paint, and felt pads all come in packs that will yield many of these kits, so they’re perfect for gift basket or holiday presents. I bought large packages of everything and still only spent about $14. That will make several of these kits and then provide materials for other crafts many times over. For example, the felt pads in my value pack will also work on my coasters.

Tic Tac Toe Bag

Using a straight edge (I used the tag that came on the bag) measure out a “board” for the front of your bag and apply the pain smoothly. Make sure you leave room near the neck of the bag so that the board won’t crumple when you pull the strings tight.

Tic Tac Toe Game Pieces

• Print my X and O sheet (scroll down for the link) on a heavy paper or cardstock. Click through to the jpg, save it to your computer, and then open it and print it as an 8×10.
• Punch out the letters with your 5/8 inch hole punch. Make sure you have five of each (the photo only shows three of each – sorry!)
• Sparingly apply glue to the bottom of a glass bead, using a toothpick to smear the glue around. Stick an X or O to the bottom of the bead face up so that it is magnified by the bead. Set aside to dry for one hour.

When the pieces are dry, stick a felt pad to the bottom of each piece.

Voila! You are done! You have a portable Tic Tac Toe set to tote in the car or to the beach or a restaurant, to keep the kids busy while you wait.

I’m hoping my summer guests will find this cute little craft as charming as I did.

X and O printable here!