Please note that this post contains affiliate links – all affiliate links for products are at the end of this post.
With the kids being home for an extended length of time at the moment I thought I would share a little crafting project that both my children enjoyed recently.
As you may know, I work a lot with polymer clay and the kids just love to come up, have a look and ask questions. My son loves to roll it through my clay roller and cut out shapes. With this in mind I bought them packs of Kids Fimo for some crafting days at home. It is softer than the Fimo Professional that I use so perfect for kids to craft with as it requires a lot less effort to make it workable.
I suggested that they could make clay coasters – this was mainly because, once they had rolled out the flat shape they could get straight to the fun bit of decorating.
This was photographed as the kids worked on the masterpieces so the photos are not quite as polished as I usually aim for!
Crafting With Kids – Making Coasters with Kids Fimo
1. My kids began by marbling two colours of clay. After quickly softening the clay in their hands they made two long snakes of clay and twisted them together. When they are twisted tightly together use an acrylic roller to flatten the clay out. If they clay isn’t as marbled as they would like then gather it up and continue to twist and then roll.
2. Roll the clay out so it is a flat surface and a consistent thickness.
3. Using various shape cutters cut out shapes in different colours of clay. My daughter also rolled out thin snakes of clay to make a ‘B’ for her name.
4. Roll the shapes so they are level with the marbled clay. If they are bumpy the coaster won’t be much good!
5. Use various tools from around your home to make little impressions in the clay. We used nail dotting tools but you could also try decorative buttons, pen ends, rounded ends of hair pins etc.
Once thoroughly decorated draw a circle or square on some card to use as your template and cut it out. If you have other coasters then draw round these. Use a craft knife to cut around your template on your clay (these pictures are out of order).
6. Pop them into your oven and harden as per the instructions on the packet of clay. Once they have cooled, hand to your kids, make them pose for a photo (just me?!) and then let them run off to admire their makes.
My daughter is 11 and was very able to do this task without much help from me. My son is 9 and needed a little more support but they both enjoyed it just the same. They now have a functional handcrafted item that can be used every single day.
If you enjoyed seeing a kids craft project for a change from me then I would love to know. Also, if you have a box of Hama beads lying around and need some inspiration then check out this blog post of making tea light holders (battery operated candles only) with them for the kids bedrooms. It’s a much older post but you can see how we arranged them on the Hama bead peg board so that they could all come together.
Below are the affiliate links for some of the item used – They are for Amazon UK and Amazon US. Please note that if you use my link to buy an item then I earn a small commission at no expense to you. This just means that I can continue to offer free tutorials.
Amazon UK
Kids Fimo in Pastel and Assorted
Amazon US
That’s all from me today – I’m off to bed to dream up other crafting projects to keep my kids entertained as even they are now getting bored of playing Minecraft and watching YouTube!
Hannah x
The Artisan Duck 
A lovely project. I just wish my family could come so I could make some with them. I shall have to remember where I saw the tutorial for when lockdown is lifted.
Thank you. I know, life seems so far from normal at the moment. I had arranged for my kids to socially distance play in my Mum’s garden one afternoon last week. They were all so excited and then it rained all day 😕 So very frustrating. Fingers crossed it won’t be too much longer.
Aww these are fabulous Hannah .. truly lovely makes!
Thank you. Kept the kids busy making them for a whole afternoon. What’s not to love about that!!! Hxxx