Clara has recently become fascinated with money — not in the practical sense of paying bills, but in the tactile, playful way: counting coins, stacking them, and tucking them into pockets and purses. I’ve been handing her quarters and nickels left and right (thankfully she’s past the stage of putting everything in her mouth), but the real coins always seem to disappear. That raises a single, unavoidable question: is there a small vortex in our house that swallows socks and loose change? Is Burger secretly saving up for a jar of peanut butter? We’ll probably never know, but it’s becoming a little mysterious.
After losing another handful of coins, I decided it was silly to keep replacing real money that would inevitably vanish. I wanted a lightweight, inexpensive alternative that wouldn’t roll easily under the sofa or slip between couch cushions — those are my two best guesses for where the missing change lives. I also wanted something that would fit in with Clara’s other toys: she loves her play kitchen and her dollhouse, so pretend money seemed like a perfect addition to her make-believe world. And to be honest, I was looking for an excuse to play with metallic markers.
I headed to the craft store and picked up small wooden discs that reminded me of pogs from childhood. I grabbed two smaller sets roughly the size of nickels/dimes (each pack had about 18 pieces) and one larger pack with discs the size of quarters. I already owned two metallic permanent markers — one in a warm bronze tone and one silvery — but if you don’t have them they’re easy to find at any craft shop. After using a coupon, the whole project cost me only a few dollars, which makes it a very budget-friendly craft.
The decorating process was simple and quick. For pennies I drew a warm bronze face with “1¢” in the center and added little coin-like ridges around the edge. Nickels got a silver finish with “5¢” at the center and a solid band around the outside. For quarters I wrote “25¢” in the middle and added more detailed edge lines to suggest texture, and for dollars I used the silvery marker with “$1” and a strong outer band to set it apart. No need for perfection — the charm is in their handmade look, and Clara immediately accepted them as money in her imaginative play.
As a bonus, I made an extra set as a small, homemade birthday gift for our friend Will. I packed the wooden coins in a bright orange container so he would have a place to stash his pretend loot. We sent it off with a few other treats and later heard from Katie that Will liked the small gift, which was gratifying — homemade presents feel especially good when they’re enjoyed.
The whole project took me about an hour from start to finish and turned out to be more fun than I expected. Clara has used the wooden coins all week, carrying them around, trading them at her play kitchen counter, and tucking them into tiny dollhouse drawers. We did lose one of the fake nickels at first, but we found it later, which only reinforced the strange coin-disappearing phenomenon at our house: real change seems to vanish, while wooden money, for some reason, survives.
Have you tried making simple pretend money for children? It’s an easy, affordable craft that encourages counting and role play, and it’s also a good way to protect your real change from whatever mysterious forces lurk around sofas and laundry baskets. If your house has a change-eating vortex or a band of coin-thieving fairies, wooden coins might at least give you something to laugh about while you search under the couch cushions.