On the eighth day of Craft-Mas the crafting gods gave to me, coasters made oh so cheaply:
And these puppies were oh so easy and cheap to make! The hardest part was finding patience enough to let the paint and the sealer dry for the appropriate amount of time. And per our usual drill, let’s step through the play by play for this craft project starting with the materials:
Supplies included a roll of cork that I purchased from Lowes for $9 (it’s found in the closet accessories aisle…it took me forever and a day…which is a long time FYI…to figure out), a stencil from AC Moore for a whopping $1, six tiles from Lowes for $0.16 each (whoa big spendah!), stenciling paint, sealer (which I later scraped in lieu of a spray on variety…more on that later), and some cheap foam brushes. First step, stenciling on the paint:
I learned a few very important lessons that I will share with you, since this was my first stenciling project. One, tape the stencil to the surface you’re working. I learned that the hard way. After the stencil kept slipping off the tile, I decided to break out the Scotch….tape that is. But a double malt would have been nice too. Can you tell I have no idea what I’m talking about? I’m more of a beer/margarita girl! Two, make sure you use a vertical tapping motion rather than trying to brush it on. Again, learned that the hard way. The paint kept bleeding and spreading beyond the stencil boarders. And three, use the paint very sparingly. Once again, learned that the hard way. The first tile I stenciled I ended up wiping off about eight times before I finally figured out proper stenciling protocol. In the end, I was left with six very pretty stenciled tiles.
The next step was to seal the water based paint to the tile using a spray on craft glaze.
Originally I had chosen a paint on sealer which was yet another lesson learned. When I painted on the sealer with one of the foam brushes, the entire stencil design came with it. I then switched to a spray variety which was much more effective. I let the stencils dry overnight and the next day I prepared the cork for the attachment procedure.
Since the back of the tiles were ugly, very ugly, and probably would scratch any wood surface I used them on, I needed to adhere some kind of material to the back of the tiles. I chose cork. I was inspired by the pieces of cork you get in the gardening section of the hardware store. You know, the ones you put under house plants to absorb the water and moisture the pots emit. I applied that same principal and decided to use cork material to line the back of the coasters. After flattening the cork roll, I traced the coasters, cut the cork, and whipped out my guns…and my glue gun…it was a regular gun show at our house…to glue the cork onto the tile.
By about the third piece of cork I developed the perfect cork gluing system: apply a massive amount of glue to the center of the tile, line up the cork and press it down for solid adhesion, then one side at a time apply a thick bead of glue along the edge, press down, and rub off any excess glue. Then they were all ready for use.
Love the Christmas time coasters! In case you couldn’t tell, the paint is supposed to be red and sparkly. They would have looked more red/sparkly had I put on several layers of paint or used a solid red colored paint as the base and then applied the sparkly paint on top of it. I stopped after one coat because I liked the light hue. I intended for the coasters to be used only at Christmas time but they may end up a permanent fixture in our living room.
So now I’m left six pretty coasters and a massive amount of cork with no idea what to do with it. More coasters? Perhaps. Bulletin board? Probably not. Hmmmmm.
Pssst…While I’m bunkering down in The Roost getting my Christmas on, what have you all been up to? Any fun projects to share? Do tell! Do tell! I love living vicariously through our readers! Happy Tuesday everyone!
