My kids have enjoyed Memory match over the years and we have had a few different sets over the years, from PJ Masks to Mickey Mouse character sets, and in true kid style, we always end up with one or two of them chewed on by the baby at the time, and one or two or more of them lost under couches and in crevices.
An idea smacked me in the head this morning, a great way to make sure we always have a full set of memory match that will truly engage the kids. Put their faces on them! And I’m not talking paying tonnes of money to have them professionally printed. I am a big advocate with make do with what you have. And I have a printer, a cereal box to recycle, and some laminating pouches. That way when you inevitably loose a card, you can always print out another one.
You could print these onto card stock to save using some sort of cardboard behind the images, but since I don’t have any on hand, I will cut up a cereal box to put as a backing to the images so you can’t see any clues through the back of the paper.
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Materials I used: printer paper, old Vita Brits box, scissors, paper trimmer, clag, laminator and laminator pouches.
With the use of one of my favourite online tools, Canva, I quickly whipped up an A4 document, and used a grid to create 16 images on one page. There are a few different shapes and sizes you could use to depending on how large you want your images. For example, for younger kids you might want larger pictures and fewer pairs. My kids are 8, 6, 3 and 1. And my older kids are quite good at memory match, so I printed two pages of 16 images to give them a good challenge.
I chose to use the 4×4 images to keep them a little smaller. I chose images of the people in our family, Nanny, Pop, cousins, babies, people we all love. The cropping and zoom on my images isn’t perfect, but done is better than perfect. That is my own personal mantra.
Once you have printed the images, you will need to cut them up. You could use scissors or a guillotine, I happen to have an A4 size paper trimmer at home, so that’s the quickest and easiest thing for me to use.
Again, you could spend more time to get the cuts perfect, and take off all the white border, but again, done is better than perfect, and when kids are waiting and watching ready to play, done now is even better still.
Next up, if you have printed onto paper or thin card, you will want to give your images a backing so you can’t see the photo through the back of the paper.
I am using an old Vita Brits box that was destined for the recycling bin. Cut the box to size and stick your pieces to the back of the image with some glue (just a little so your photo doesn’t go wrinkly).
Once you have glued each photo to it’s cardboard backing, lay them out in your laminating pouches and run them through a hot laminator. (Mine doesn’t have temperatures or anything, just hot and cold settings!)
Then it’s time to get cutting again. Trim each image, making sure the edges are rounded to avoid scratching kiddie fingers. Then you are good to go!
Then call the kids in and let them go crazy. Owen has already had a few rounds of this new set and loved that we were all in it.
Simples… (Aussies, please tell me you read that in the meerkat voice from Compare the Market?!?)
I’d love to hear if you’ve ever made a personalised game like this, even better, share photos with me on Instagram!
Will you give this a go as a holiday craft project with your kiddies?
