FIMO was big in the 1990s and now its making its way back into $2 shops … We just bought some on our recent beach holiday and it kept the kids entertained for some of the day.
It is essentially like a moulding plasticine that you can make any type of figure or object from and then bake it for 30 mins to make it go hard and permanent. Its fairly clean and non-technical which means it was good for all of my kids from 5-13 … younger would be OK too with some supervision.
Basically FIMO is a particular brand of the product and to be clear, the stuff in the cheap shops is not the original brand but rather a cheap knock-off. Its also not always $2 and pack sizes vary but its a lot cheaper than it used to be.
Back in the 1990s I knew of many adults making pendants and beads from this stuff and you may have seen them at markets etc. You can buy larger amounts of a single colour or a pack with 10-12 small blocks of many colours. That is the one we got to make it more interesting. Here are some examples of our kids creations as well as one from one of the bored dads 😉
I would recommend putting down some newspaper or something to protect your surfaces and definitely wash your hands after use …
Have fun!!