Magnet Dominos DIY

We are finally to the point where Ro has the attention span and skills required to play simple tabletop games. It's pretty much the best thing ever. One of the very first games we got him into was dominos. But normal dominos was still a little complicated for our attention span.

So I figured I had two problems to fix: make it simple and make it something we could walk away from and come back to later. For the first problem, the solution was pretty easy: colors. I had seen many bloggers use paint to make some beautiful dominos (like here and here.) The second problem was fixed as soon as we got our new/old set of lockers... magnets! (Why didn't I think of them before? Because our fridge isn't magnetic. Who does that!? Where am I supposed to put Ro's beautiful creations?) The process after the idea was pretty straightforward.

I like to be thrifty whenever possible, so this DIY is made of recycled materials. Cute AND it helps save the planet? That's my jam.

Supplies:

thin cardboard boxes (cereal, mac and cheese, etc)

scissors

magnets (on Amazon)

paint

Step One: Cut up your cardboard.

Cut your cardboard into rectangles that are the same size (mine are about 1 1/2 in by 3 in). If you are using thin cardboard you should be able to use normal scissors. If you use the same amount of colors as me you will need 21 rectangles to make a full set.

Step Two: Paint your dominos.

I used 5 paint colors (pink, yellow, blue, white, green) and then let one color be the color of the cardboard, so in total I had six colors. Every color should have 1 whole color piece and 5 half color pieces. So, for example, blue will have blue/blue, blue/pink, blue/yellow, blue/white, blue/green, and blue/blank. When you are done painting set them aside to dry.

Step Three: Add magnets.

Magnets usually come with a sticky side. Cut your magnets to be smaller than the domino and attach it to the back side. Then, as long as the paint is dry, they are ready to be played with!

These dominos are so fun and colorful that I put them all in a mesh drawstring bag and used a magnet hook on the side of the lockers so they would be available whenever we wanted to play. We've gotten them out a few times to play a few rounds, but we have also used them to create shapes, or just to make a giant color matching train!