coast-ers: simple inventions to prevent distasteful water spots on wooden tables and other surfaces.

I’m in the process of a life-long skills lab wherein I learn the art and science of using little details in a house to make it homey. It’s all a bit mysterious to me, but this DIY project is one such little skills lab. This was a trial run for me, and I’m happy with how these turned out. I saw the idea on Pinterest to use Home Depot tiles (@ $0.16 a piece!) and whatever paper you want to make coasters, and I told a number of friends about it. A couple of them also thought it was a great idea and beat me to supply acquisition, so I went over to happily engage in a craft night and test it out. They picked some pretty papers for me to choose from!

Skills Lab.

What you need:

As many square tiles as you plan to make coasters with.

mod podge – glue

foam brush, or small paintbrush, or fingers

scrapbooking paper

thin corkboard round pieces with an adhesive backing (you can find them at Home Depot) for the coaster’s feet.

clear spray paint

I love using scraps, so I layered scraps on the tiles to make a design and tried to use the same shapes and follow within the patterns of the base paper. Designing, that’s my favorite part (after the part where I can look back on a project and deem it 1) pretty, 2) useful, or 3) a challenge conquered). I used the foam brush with mod podge on it to secure the paper to the tile, and after waiting about 24 hours, you can apply a coat of clear spray paint to the surface and seal it all up! The last part is just to add the little corkboard feet so that the coaster doesn’t slide around or scratch any surfaces.

That’s it- it’s simple and has lots of room for creative license (even though you do probably need to -literally- stay within the box 🙂 )