DIY Cricut Tic Tac Toe Bags: Easy Fish Extender Gifts

These Cricut Tic Tac Toe bags are the perfect DIY gift for a Disney fish extender gift exchange, or for any occasion really! Create your own personalised tic tac toe games with any theme you please – they don’t have to be Disney-inspired!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create your own Mickey Tic Tac Toe game bags using the Cricut Joy. Best of all, this project can easily be made with any vinyl-cutting machine.

DIY Cricut Tic Tac Toe Bags

Most kids have grown up playing tic tac toe. We called it naughts and crosses usually as kids, but the idea is exactly the same.

It’s one of the easiest two-player games where you only need a pencil and paper or a stick and some dirt really…

But these Cricut tic tac toe bags are far cuter and make a wonderful handmade gift for kids. They are inexpensive to make and only take a few minutes each to create.

Disney Tic Tac Toe Fish Extender Gifts

We created these Mickey tic tac toe bags for our Disney Cruise Line fish extender gift exchange.

If you’ve ever been on a Disney cruise, you will likely know what I’m talking about, but if not… what the heck is a fish extender, you ask?

It’s sort of like a Secret Santa gift exchange except you are paired up with other families. Depending on how it is organised, this can be up to 10 families in a group, which means a lot of little gifts (or 9 family gifts) to give.

While they certainly don’t need to be handmade, or Disney-themed, we wanted to keep our fish extender gifts affordable so we mixed in a few DIY gifts with our purchased gifts. These tic tac toe games were by far the favourite!

We created a set for each of the kids in our extender group.

How To Make Tic Tac Toe Bags With Cricut Joy

Making these cute tic tac toe games is really easy! And you only need a couple of items to create them. Here’s what you need:

• A vinyl cutting machine – I used my Cricut Joy
• Black Iron-on or Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Cricut HeatPress (or household iron)
• Fabric drawstring bags
• Buttons – Here are some Mickey-shaped buttons
• Tic-Tac-Toe SVG file

TIP: If you don’t want to use buttons, you can also use little stones, plastic hearts or anything else around that same size. You will either need two different colours or you can use your Cricut to make vinyl naughts and crosses for each instead.

Designing Your Game Bags

Open Cricut Design Space software on your computer or mobile device (I love that I can use my iPad or phone). Here you will need to either upload your own tic-tac-toe SVG or use an existing design.

I used an existing design in Cricut Design Space. There are quite a few options if you have a Cricut Access Membership. If not, you can create your own in Canva and upload it to the design space.

Another option is to purchase one from Creative Fabrica (I have a subscription which means you get everything on the site included and there are sooooo many great cut files).

I created my Mickey head design with 3 circles layered and combined for the head and ears. And added TIC TAC TOE in an easy-to-read font.

I used black HTV for each of these vinyl designs, however you can mix it up with different colours too.

Make sure you size your designs to suit the size of your bag. You don’t want your tic tac toe board lines or Mickey’s head too close to the drawstring area.

Once you’ve got your design elements ready, cut them with your Cricut machine using HTV or iron-on vinyl.

Remember glossy/shiny side faces down on your cutting mat when using heat transfer vinyl. And once your design is cut, take care to weed around the letters as they are quite small.

Use a Cricut Heatpress or an iron to apply your vinyl to the bag. Make sure you line your design up straight before you iron, or it will be stuck on wonky!

I placed a piece of parchment paper inside my bags before using my HeatPress, as the fabric is quite thin. I also applied a piece over the top too, to avoid direct heat on my vinyl.

Always refer to the Cricut heat guide for determining temperatures and times.

Once cool, gently peel away the vinyl backing.

Finishing The Bags

To finish your Cricut tic tac toe gifts, add your buttons or markers.

I added 5 of each colour with two different colours in each bag. This way there are enough tokens, regardless of who goes first… in case players get to 9 tokens on the board.

If you don’t want to use buttons, there are plenty of other things you can use for tokens. Pebbles, cardboard or felt shapes cut with a Cricut machine, resin shapes.

Conclusion: DIY Disney Tic Tac Toe Games

These Cricut tic tac toe game bags are adorable gifts that you can gift for so many occasions. Of course, the Disney fish extender or as pixie dust gifts on board a cruise, as stocking stuffers, party favours, Valentine’s Day gifts for kids. You can create them in any theme you like and they are great travel gifts too for playing during road trips or on a plane.