Easy Kids Christmas Craft: Handmade Cocktail Coasters

Let’s all admit what Christmas is really about: drinking. So last week when my sometimes-daughter was over, we made some (VERY SIMPLE) coasters. A cinch to make after school, these Fimo-and-glitter beauties will lift the festive fog from too much grog, and add a little charm to that glass of champagne (you know, the one your hangover’s telling you shouldn’t look so good).

Like all craft on this blog, this involves almost no effort from you (apart from buying the materials) and also doesn’t require high levels of time and engagement from them. As you can see from the above, it’s not about a perfect result, either.

I am NOT a crafter, but a small homemade Christmas present for grandparents is always appreciated. When my eldest was two, we made a bunch of glitter-glued salt dough decorations, posting one to each family member (I must have had so much time on my hands, I would never get around to making, let alone posting, on that scale now).

The remainder were on our tree until Sunday night, when a ghost must have yelled “TIMBER!” while we were out, because when we got home the tree had collapsed and all our glass baubles and most of the salt dough had smashed. (Me and my children cried).

Anyhoo. The year before last, we made the above really easy candle jars that I read about at the Nurturestore. The grandmothers adored them. (Last year we did nothing, I had a 18-month-old and a five-year-old, are you quite mad?).

This year we’re doing the coasters, which require a few blocks of Fimo (£2.50 each from Clarkes down in Cliffe) and some glitter (a pack of tubes from Clarkes upstairs in the toy bit, or large tubs downstairs by the spray paint. I also found tubs of quite fat glitter sparkles at Fun Learning today and wish we’d had those for this).

Again, like all the craft on this blog, I take absolutely no credit for this idea. It belongs to Joy Cho, an American super-blogger and designer at Oh Joy!. Her very professional pictures look much better than mine as the Los Angeles sun was blazing outside, whereas I was taking mine on a dark English December evening on an iPhone with no flash. Plus she did not frame this as a kids activity and as you can see, ours do not follow much rhyme or reason. Still, I think they’re pretty cute.

Here’s how they’re done:

1) Roll out all the colours super-thin. Don’t worry about a circular cookie cutter, we just used the mouth of a glass.

2) Then let them decorate them however they like. My sometimes-daugether did this very artfully and carefully; my boys dumped whole pots of glitter on theirs.

(I had to have a chat with myself not to get twitchy about that and later it was quite nice that the whole house looked as if Tinkerbell had paid us a visit).

3) After the kids have finished ‘decorating’ them, roller the discs over once or twice to flatten out the designs, then bake at 130 degrees C on baking parchment for about 20 minutes.

Boom! Jazzy coasters! 

P.S. Save this for Sunday, apparently rain’s-a-comin’!

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