Fuzzy Nostalgia

Remember all those puzzles and games hidden away in our attic? Well, brace yourself for a bit more childhood nostalgia because...

 

... we found a box of Fuzzy-Felt!

What fun this stuff was!

We spent hours and hours and hours as kids re-arranging these little felt pieces and using them to tell all kinds of stories.

Sadly they don't stick to the board any more, and some of the pieces are definitely showing their age.

It feels totally wrong to just throw them away though, so I'm thinking maybe I should make something from them? Maybe combine them with some plain felt and patterned papers to make some nostalgic cards to send to my friends? Hmmm...

I shall add the pieces to my box of "random things that might be useful for a crafty project sometime" (every crafter has a box like that, right??) and see if/when inspiration strikes!

P.S. You might also enjoy these posts about board games, toys, books, erasers, badges and stickers from my 80s childhood :)

A Wave of Nostalgia: Puzzles & Games from My Childhood

This weekend I fell down a bit of a nostalgia rabbit hole. I was doing some decluttering and re-organising of my stuff, playing lots of old mixtapes while I worked and getting frequently distracted by reading old letters, etc.

Meanwhile, my mum was clearing a few more boxes out of the attic - retrieving more boxes of things from our childhood that were packed up many moons ago. Some of this treasure will be (finally) given to charity shops, but much of it is destined for my new neice and any siblings and cousins she aquires over the coming years :)

I remembered a lot of the things that emerged from these boxes, but there were a few that hit me with such a strong wave of memories that it was slightly overwhelming (in a good way!). I thought you guys might enjoy a peek at some of the games I loved in my 80s childhood - maybe you had some of these too?

Picture Pairs & Animal Friends Dominos: I must have been really young when we first started playing picture pairs but those pictures are imprinted on my brain. The watering can was always my favourite.

Snakes and Ladders - a classic!

 

Foxwood Tales and Brambly Hedge jigsaw puzzles: I loved these books (especially the Brambly Hedge series) and spent many happy hours looking at the pictures, and (when I was a bit older) trying to draw some of the charming little things in them.

Teddy Bears Picnic: I had 100% forgotten that this game was a thing that existed and I have no clue what the rules might have been, but when it came out of the box from the attic: POW! So familiar!

 

Something else I'd totally forgotten about: Victoria Plum's Adventures. I loved this book and all the cute pictures, especially as my BFF at the time was called Victoria:

Huff-Puff: My mum tried to get rid of this game when we were deciding what to keep and what to charity shop. "It looks really boring!" she said. "What's fun about building these fiddly little card houses?" But we were having none of it. Building little card houses before the wolf can blow them down = very fun indeed!

Another fave puzzle: I absolutely adored this picture and remember doing lots of paintings with mountains in them just like those.

There was also a box of older-kids games. We spent sooooo many hours playing Guess Who over the years, including many games auf Deutsch with visiting German friends. Once you've learnt the German for things like "does he have a moustache" and "do they have brown hair?" you can have hours of fun...

Finally, rediscovering this card game hit me so hard in the feels I can't even. Old Macdonald Counting Snap! So. Much. Cuteness.

Review: Bug Bingo

Usually the only things I review here on my blog are craft books, but today I'm reviewing something a bit different: Bug Bingo!

I was offered a review copy because of the name of my blog - Bugs and Fishes. My blog's name doesn't actually come from a great love of bugs (or fishes), it's just something we used to sign our emails with instead of "hugs and kisses" when I was a teen... but as it happens I do really rather like bugs. As long as they're not crawling on me, that is!!

Bug Bingo is, as you might have guessed, a bingo game featuring lots of bugs. There's 64 different kinds of insect featured, all wonderfully illustrated by Christine Berrie whose work I've been a fan of since discovering it on Etsy many years ago.

The whole game is great quality and really rather gorgeous. Inside the sturdy box there's a bag of illustrated bug tiles, a large fold-out board for the caller to place the cards onto, 12 bingo cards (so lots of people can play at once!), green counters for marking the bugs that have been called and a leaflet with the game rules and some fun facts about all the insects featured.

Christine's illustrations have done great justice to the weird and wonderful, detailed and colourful, endlessly interesting forms of the insect kingdom - they are a delight to look at and there are lots of bugs included that I'd never heard of before. Oh, and the focus is firmly on insects: no spiders in sight (hurrah!)

I love that the back of the tiles, the board and the cards are all printed with the same bug silhouette design that's been used for the bag.

I always used to enjoy playing bingo when I was a kid and remember it being a great game for kids of different ages or for kids and adults to play together, as younger kids were never at a disadvantage in the way they can be with board games involving strategy or factual knowledge.

I think this would be an excellent gift for a nature-loving child or family, or for anyone who loves board games and wants a stylish bingo game with a twist. There's an educational element to it with the booklet of facts and lots of interesting insect names to learn but I think this will be a great game to get out and play long after you've learnt about all the insects.

And if you're not a huge bug fan Christine Berrie's beautiful illustrations also appear on a matching (and quite lovely looking) Bird Bingo game!

Bug Bingo is published by Laurence King. RRP £19.95. It's available from Amazon UK, Amazon USA and many other shops.

Please note: I was sent a free review copy of this game. The Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.