These melty bead coasters are a fun craft for kids to make – and would make great gifts!
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My son and I have been playing around with melty beads (or pony beads, if you that’s what you prefer to call them!). We used a mixture of opaque multi-color beads and some translucent sparkly ones!
I placed a metal cookie cutter and some steel round forms (leftover from the days when I used to care about food presentation!) onto a baking tray, then invited my son to fill the shapes with a single layer of beads. For one crazy moment I thought he might pick up the beads one by one and place them in the ring. But no.
Well it got the job done! (Although I confess that I did alter the coloring of the beads in the heart!)
I baked them in a 400F oven, checking them every few minutes. After about 10 minutes there was a faint melting plastic smell (unsurpisingly) so I opened the kitchen door and turned on the extractor, and that took care of it! It took 25-30 minutes for the beads to all melt completely.
After baking they looked really good!
They have a bobbly surface on one side, and a super-smooth surface on the other. After making some more round ones, I decided to turn them into coasters! I cut out some circles of felt just a little smaller than the melted bead rounds, then attached them to the bobbly side using a hot glue gun. This way the nice smooth side would be facing up on the coaster.
These melty bead coasters would make great gifts and the designs could be random or complicated, depending on the age and creativity of the child.
Melty Bead Coasters - a fun craft for kids to make and perfect for gifts! #kidscrafts #meltybeads Click To Tweet
We are trying this as i type this! We got oversized cookie cutters and i just took them out of the oven – they look awesome. I think smaller ones would make awesome chrismas ornaments or a pretty sparkly mobile!
Thank you for the idea – it is just what we needed for a new craft!
That’s fantastic, I’m so glad they worked out for you!
Fun idea. I’ve seen lots of ideas for pony beads lately, but these are so practical and cute! Thanks 🙂
Gorgeous. Featuring you this Share It Saturday 🙂
Love this and it will feature on Share It Saturday. Thank you
We used cookie cutters of multiple sizes. Then we drilled holes and put them together for a cool mobile. We hung it from the girls’ light fixture in their room.
That sounds amazing, Shonna!