Fimo Coasters: My Greatest Crafting Secret Revealed!

OMG, WHAAA?! That's right, I am about to share one of my most sacred crafting secrets. My fimo flowers! (You can for sure find a step-by-step on youtube. I like to flatter myself.) 

SO, for my entire junior year in college, I lived abroad. During my second semester, I wasn't so much a "student" in the traditional sense. I was doing an "independent study" in photography, an "internship" at an itty bitty private museum, and I "volunteered." These quotations are probably misleading. I really did all of those things (for credit), just the bare minimum. Needless to say, I had a shit-ton of of free time on my hands to do whatever the hell I felt like. 

I volunteered as an assistant to an arts and crafts teacher who taught me the magical ways of FIMO! I was SO excited about this new material, that I marched myself to the only art store I could find to buy my own supplies and started experimenting. One of my favorite discoveries was how to make coasters. I only made one or two at the time, but have been looking forward to making more. I think it's time. 

Supplies:

1. 4 or 5 colors of fimo from Michael's.

2. An X-Acto knife from a local hardware store.

3. A Drawing Board from Blick.

4. A Fimo pasta machine from Michael's.

5. An oven or toaster over. Your call. 

Step 1:

Select two colors of your fimo and form them into cylinders of equal width and height. 

Step 2: 

Use your X-Acto knife to cut the cylinders into quarters.

Step 3: 

Arrange the cut cylinders as I did above. (Are there words I could even use to describe this action?!)

Step 4: 

Squish this together.

"OH MA GAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

After all the squishing, your fimo should look like mine above. 

Step 5: 

Slice your fimo in half. 

Step 6:

Stack the two halves side by side. Then squish together like above. The shape will begin to look like a short, fat cylinder. This is good. 

Step 7: 

Warm up a chunk of a third color in your hands.

Step 8: 

Pull the new color through the pasta machine so you get a nice flat piece.

Step 9: 

Wrap the large flat piece around your cylinder. 

Step 10: 

Trim off any excess of the flat piece. 

Step 11: 

Start rolling out the cylinder so that it gets long and thin. 

Step 12:

Trim off the edges.

Step 13:

Cut this into 6 even pieces.

Step 14:

Pinch each piece as I am above so that it takes on the shape of a flower petal. 

Step 15: 

Warm up chunk of a new color in your hand. Shape it into a small cylinder.

Place in the center of your petals. 

Trim off excess.

Step 16: 

Warm up your last color in your hand.

Step 17: 

Roll this one out nice and small.

Step 18:

Add the new color to the nooks between the petals.

Trim the excess. Repeat for the rest of the nooks in between the petals.

Step 19:

Pull a chunk of the new color through the pasta machine. 

Wrap the flat piece around the flower.

Trim the excess. 

Step 20: 

Start to squeeze this so that is becomes a longer cylinder rather than a short, fat cylinder. 

Start rolling this out into a long, thin cylinder. 

Step 21:

Slice small pieces off of the cylinder. 

Step 22: 

Start forming the slices together in a circular pattern around a center slice. 

Step 23: 

Once you reach a coaster-like size, make sure all pieces are attached to each other by lightly pushing together and against the board. 

Step 24: 

Bake at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes. 

and FINALLY, we have coasters! 

Aren't they just so freaking cute!

 

Check out those gorgeous flowers! 

 

I love them! So happy I got to make more of these. You know what's crazy? I used the exact same colors for both versions, and look at how different they came out. It's amazing how much the position of the colors affects the outcome.

Anyways, enough rambling. This post has been long enough. Show me what you can do with fimo!

Or e-me if you want to buy my creations!