"Coaster Tutorial"

Want to learn how to make these?? This post is going to be a tutorial on how to make coasters :D, sounds fun right? What a perfect wedding, house warming, bday gift you could give :)!

First you need to go to your local Home Depot (or any other BIG hardware chain), and pick up some tumble tile. It comes in lots of styles and colors...pick one out that suits you and the project you are doing. These tiles come in small boxes of 9-10, and are about $5.99 a box, I got 2 boxes of 2 different styles and colors.

Next, you need to go to your Michael's store and get some "Acryllic spray" to spray your coasters with once you are done stamping/coloring them. The spray's directions are pretty clear, so follow them closely and this is the brand I did use in the end...pretty happy with the outcome. You can either get glossy or matte, just like the pictures you get developed.

You also need a thin roll of cork board, they have a lot to choose from...so pick the thickness you would like. The spray is $9.99 a can, and the cork board is $13.99 because the stuff I used is self adhesive (I cheated I know)!! This stuff has a grid on the backside of the cork, so that you can measure it out and cut it more accurately which I thought was pretty niffty.

Once you get home you need to take your tile out of their boxes and give them a good scrubbing with water and a scrub brush, or do what I did get my 5 year old son to help wash them. Then I had him lay them on the deck to dry, they dried pretty quickly which was nice because I was sort of getting antsy to get this project started.

When you are waiting for your tiles to dry, you can pick out the stamp sets that you will be using for this project. I chose the "Doodle This" stamp set, the "Blooming With Happiness" stamp set and a stamp I had picked up from "Carousel Rubberstamp" store. I used "Stayz on Ink", and "Tombow" markers to color them in (but it ran a bit on one of my tiles) so use something like "Stayz on Ink" !!

Once you have stamped on your images, you need to take your tiles outside and spray them in a well ventilated area 10 cm away from your tiles and then let dry. This spray dries pretty quickly too, which is also nice :)! The tiles have dried now, so you will roll out your cork roll and place one tile onto the grid that is on the back of the cork...cut it to fit the bottom of your tile. Peel off the plastic layer, put the sticky side of the cork on the tile and press firmly!! Your tile should look something like this in the end!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and will give this fun project a try...I dare you :p!