Christmas Coasters

Okay, before I begin... if you are my mother-in-law... STOP READING THIS!

Now that we have that cleared up -- moving on.

Awhile ago I was looking for some fun things to make as Christmas presents and stumbled upon a fun little pin from Oopsey Daisy.


I have to say I was a little intimidated by the resin/hardener thing so I put this little project on the back burner. It wasn't until I got a coupon from the local drug store for 25 free prints that I decided I needed to give it a shot.

I ran to the store (I say "ran" as though it takes 5 minutes, but it really was a lovely 45 minute jaunt) and got some tiles from Lowes and then got a package of resin/hardener from Michael's and on the way home grabbed my pictures from the drug store and then - to work!

First thing I did was measure the front of my tiles because they had quite a ridge and I wanted to make sure I was cutting the pictures the right size... can you tell I've screwed up more than one project?? The flat front of my tile was 3.5" square so I then got out my trusty exacto knife and ruler and cut all the pictures to 3.5"x3.5".


Let me say this -pay attention to the size of your tile when you are picking what pictures you want to use. I didn't do that at first and man, I would've had some REALLY weird coasters if I had used some of the pictures once they were cut.

After you've cropped all the pictures, glue them onto the tile. I used a regular ol' glue stick for the job and it worked great. I also used a photo corner cutter on my pictures because the tiles I bought had rounded corners and yes, I know the pictures would've looked silly if I hadn't found a corner cutter. I guess it is a good thing I am a craft supply hoarder collector.

Here's the trickiest part of the whole project. Mix your resin/hardener - in a WELL ventilated area. I am not even going to try to give you instructions on it because every brand has different instructions. Just read the directions of whatever brand you buy and look on their website too - lots of tips! I found that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be though. I will say this about the experience. You need to stack yours tiles onto something when you pour the resin/hardener over them - don't use something that you hope to re-use as a future craft project... like cute wooden blocks... the resin will get on them too.

Lesson learned.

Once you have poured the resin/hardener over the tiles - wait about 3 minutes and grab or blow torch.... wait, you don't have blow torch???? Yeah, me either so I grabbed a straw - they're almost the same right? Grab your straw and blow or sort of exhale into the straw over the tiles. All of the air bubbles will disappear like magic, it's really weird. Be forewarned - some will return. You need to watch this little project for about an hour off and on to make sure you've blown all the pesky bubbles away.


It took my tiles about 24 hours to dry and 48 hours to be perfectly hard. After I knew that they were completely dry, it was time to finish the coasters up! One problem though, the resin/hardener drips, and the drips dry, and that makes for a wobbly coaster and that seems like a crappy gift to give someone. Enter the Dremel.


Now I am sure that there is another way of doing this and I am also sure that if you doubled up the felt on the back, this step would become unnecessary, but I am weird about the drips and I needed them off. I grabbed the Dremel and sanded the drips off. You need to take this sort of slow because you can crack the tile if you go to fast. I didn't put the speed above three the entire time. Since you are literally sanding the resin off, it creates a LOT of dust - and it's smelly dust - so do this in a large space with ventilation.


Done sanding? Good. Wipe everything off, including you and cut some felt. 


I used a basic piece of felt and cut it to 3.5" square (like the picture) - I got all the backings for my coasters out of one piece. Once I had all of the backings - I just glued them on. This time I skipped the glue stick and went for the fabric glue (felt is fabric, sort of). Let that dry and then...

TA-DA!

I highly suggest making these for someone... I bet they will love them! Who wouldn't want to put their drink on a loved ones face??