These nail varnish marbled coasters were inspired by some eggs that we marbled a couple of years ago. It is a great kids craft for older children. I did this with Mini who is ten and he loved it. In fact, he now wants to marble anything that isn’t tied down, so I am going to get some mugs.
Nail Varnish Marbled Coasters
This is remarkably simple to do, you just need to make sure that you are in a well-ventilated area and that you wear gloves.
Materials:
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Nail polish (UK Link/US Link)
Disposable container
Tepid water
Tiles (UK Link/US Link)
Scrap paper for completed pieces to dry
Wooden sticks
Disposable gloves (UK Link/US Link)
Nail polish remover – for clean up (UK Link/US Link)
How to Make Nail Varnish Marbled Coasters
Before you start you want to cover your work area with scrap paper as nail varnish can be tricky to clean off. Mini wore disposable rubber gloves for all of this craft too.
Fill your container with a couple of inches of tepid water. We used a sweet container leftover from Halloween.
Beginning dropping in the polish. The first colour to hit the water will span out over the whole surface so beginning with a light colour is best. Continue to add colours to your desire. However, you must work fast. You want to hold your polish close to the surface so that it doesn’t hit the water too hard and just drop to the bottom.
Quickly use a toothpick or wooden skewer to make swirls. Be sure to glide around just the surface of the water, if you poke too far into the water the polish will stick onto the skewer and the polish will ball up. (The polish hardens when the skewer is too far into the water.)
Then take your tile and dip it into the water with the tile facing down. If you want to cover the whole tile then dip it in as flat as you can so as to not cause any air bubbles. Lift out the tile and slowly turn it over and let air dry for a few hours.
Mini wanted to just cover part of the tile, so he dipped on an angle.
You want to do this whole process pretty fast as the nail polish tends to harden and clump quickly. Once the tile is completely dry we sprayed it with a sealant to make them heat safe.
Then we cut our squares of felt and used double sided tape to stick them to the bottom of the tile and prevent them from scratching the surface.
Why not take a look at some other great kid-made gift ideas at the kid-made gifts seriesorganised by Nadia at Teach Me Mommy.
So pretty! Thanks for participating in the series!
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I really like these – can see that they’d be fun to make and can imagine my son concentrating as he did them – and they are super effective too. They look fab.
These are lovely, I’d happily use them in my home which isn’t always the case with kiddie’s crafts! Thanks for inspiring me Jen.
Awesome effect! And very creative 🙂
Can totally see why this is addicting. Any good suggestions on other materials items that can be painted this way? I noticed you did something similar with Easter eggs 🙂
What a lovely – and CLEVER idea!
So beautiful! Want them in my bathroom!
They look fab – we tried this with mugs and I think the resulting Instagram post was called something like ‘ When crafting goes wrong’ ha ha ha
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they look fabulous – I’d be very happy to receive those as a gift!
These are so pretty, I’d love a gift like this x
What a brilliant and really effective idea! My kids would love to have a go at this and I really like the idea of making them in to coasters as gifts.
Wow! These are beautiful. Such a fun idea for a gift.
I LOVE this craft it’s fun, easy and inexpensive. I do have one question though, how do you prevent bubbles?
Hi Emma, We never got any bubbles. I think you have to make sure that your water is tepid and you work fast.
I have a sort of silly question but where did you get the tiles that you used in order to make these?
I bought them from B&Q
Hi…what sealant did u use? Thanks ?
Hi ? what sealant did u use to seal these? Many thanks ?