Matching Coins Travel Game

I love finding fun and creative things to keep my girls busy while we’re out and about, waiting at a restaurant or at the doctor’s office. I’m not always game for lugging my big bag o’ tricks (i.e. crayons and coloring books) around, so I adore this little mini on-the-go game!

For our fun little matching coins travel game, we’ll need the following:

20 – 1 inch wooden discs, found at any craft store (please see recommendations about this below)
1 inch circle cutter (or cutting system)
Mod Podge & paintbrush
small coin purse (I found mine in Target’s Dollar Spot) or some other small bag/container
digital art (embellishments, rub-ons, etc.)
(optional, but recommended) Hard Coat Mod Podge or spray sealer
(optional) paint if you wish to have your discs painted. You would paint them BEFORE beginning the instructions that follow.

Warning: Choking hazard – this project contains small parts and is not recommended for children under the age of 3. Adult supervision is highly recommended.

A few notes about 1 inch wooden discs and circle cutters. To put it quite simply, they’re not all created evenly.

I picked up wooden discs from several different craft stores and each brand was a little different. If you look closely, you can see that they both look about the same size and they are pretty close to 1 inch in size. The disc on the right has a smooth, flat edge, but the disc on the right has a rounded edge. What this means is that while they both measure 1 inch, the top of the disc, the part that you’ll be decorating, is a different size. The disc on the right has a slightly smaller top and will not accept a 1 inch decoration. Paper cut to 1 inch would hang off the edge and not look pretty!

That brings me to cutters. I happen to have several “1 inch” circle cutters. I place this in parenthesis because while they’re called 1 inch, it might not necessarily be so. To my great fortune, one of my “1 inch” cutters actually cuts circles 7/8 of an inch in size and worked splendidly to prepare the art for my rounded discs.

This rather long-winded rant should suffice to say, get yourself a ruler and figure out what you’re working with before you get started

The next step in our process is to design your coins. You’ll be making 20 total (2 each of 10 different designs). I like to use my shape tool and create all the circles that I need. I use those circles as guides for size & placement of my embellishments, but I then delete the circles before printing, leaving the embellishments on a white background.

The art that I chose for this project came from Mari Koegelenberg’s newest kit, Hello Sunshine, and Karen Lewis’ Dinky Doodles Rub-ons Vol 1 and Dinky Doodle Rub-ons 2.

After designing your images, print and cut out with your cutter of choice, taking care to center the images when you cut out your circles.

If you chose to leave your wooden discs plain, proceed. If you wanted to paint them, well, now’s your last chance! Whatcha waiting for?

Once your discs are ready to go, paint a very thin coat of Mod Podge onto the top of a disc and gently apply one of your image circles. Be sure it’s completely adhered and you’ve not left any air bubbles. Paint another thin coat on top of your disc, covering the image and exposed disc. Let dry. Repeat on your remaining 19 discs.

To finish these off, you can (and likely should) seal them. I would recommend using a coat of Hard Coat Mod Podge or spraying with a non-yellowing clear sealer – on both sides.

While you could certainly tote your little game about in a sandwich bag (and I wouldn’t judge you for that), I think cute packaging makes it all the more fun. I found little coin purses in the Dollar Spot at Target and picked one up. Measure the ID badge area (both the over-all size and the size of the window), and create a nice “cover” for your game.

These are really so much fun. My girls adore these sets and I think they’d be so awesome to personalize for gifts. Best of luck & happy crafting!

Matching Coins Travel Game

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