Craft Day With The Girls!

Yesterday, I had a craft day with my two best friends. I had found a great idea on how to make coasters online (click here) and I could not wait to try it out! At first I wanted to make glass coasters and put pictures of the places Chris and I have traveled to on them, but the supplies were super expensive and I am a girl with an eye for a bargain! haha So instead, I settled on another idea where I could use cute scrapbook paper to match any decor! I shared this with my friend Laura who decided we should have a crafting day to make these cute (and stylish) coasters.

Thanks to Michaels and their great coupons I got all my supplies (and a few other things) for less than $20! I highly suggest checking their website for great deals and going with friends. I took my sister because you can only use one coupon per transaction, per day and was able to get 25% off all scrapbook supplies (excluding Martha Stewart) and 40% off one item with her help! Needless to say, I was really excited for all my savings (and so was Chris!).

We got all the scrapbook paper at Michaels as well as Mod Podge glue. Make sure, if you end up wanting to do this, you get a matte finish instead of gloss. The end result won't look as nice with a shiny finish over the paper! The cork board we bought at Wal Mart for $6.00, and everything else pictured I already had!

After heading off to Wal Mart to pick up some last minute supplies, we stopped off at Lowes to grab the tiles. We went to the flooring section and picked up white 4x4 tiles for $0.16 each. I ended up getting twenty, that way I could make four sets of four, and have a few left over in case I made mistakes! After buying our tiles, we were ready to go back to Laura's and get started!

The first thing we did was pick our the patterned paper we wanted and cut it to size (4in. x 4in.). We then placed the paper on the tile to make sure we liked how it looked before using the glue.

Laura used a lot of blues, greens, and browns to compliment her house.

These are the papers I used (along with many others). The black and white ones have a classy and elegant look to them, which I believe would match any decor!

We then took our mod podge glue and put a thin coat on the back of the scrapbook paper. We had to let it sit between 5 and 10 minutes so that everything could dry, otherwise the paper would pucker in a most unattractive way!

Here is Emily gluing her paper down on the tiles!

And then smoothing out the paper to get rid of air pockets.

The next step was to take the mod podge and put a thin coat on top of the paper. We had to make sure to go with the grain because once it dries you can see the pattern from the way we rubbed the glue on! This takes 10-15 minutes, but while we were waiting we were able to continue making more tiles. We also put two or three coats (its all up to your personal preference) of mod podge on the top to really make sure we sealed everything in.

Once we started getting the hang of it, the process moved along much faster. Of course, Emily and I began to get extremely impatient and stopped following the glue drying instructions. If you want to try this project and think that skipping a few steps won't hurt the final outcome…don't! Otherwise, you'll end up with this:

You may not be able to tell in this picture, but all of these tiles (except for the two black ones) had ridiculously large (and numerous) air pockets in them. I tore the paper off of the five tiles, and ended up starting over with them. Needless to say, I stopped skipping steps and went back to the right way of doing things. The final result was a less frustrated and happier me.

Once we had finished all of our gluing and let all the tiles dry, we began the process of putting the backing on. We had two options: use felt or go the more expensive but professional route and use cork. Emily had both, but Laura and I had decided to use cork only. We originally thought that the mod podge glue would work well and that would be the end of it, but it did not work out that way. I think if we had used clamps to hold it together while it dried, we would have been fine. But…we didn't have any and even using our hands proved to be unhelpful. Every time we let go, the cork would fall off so we eventually gave up. Emily was the only one to have a good solution, because she was able to get the felt to adhere to the backs of the tiles. Then, Laura came up with the brilliant idea of hot gluing the cork but none of us brought a glue gun so we ended up packing our things and going our separate ways.

I was very eager to get home and finish my project. For me, the cork was the last piece of the puzzle and I was so anxious and excited to get started. I cut my cork just a bit smaller than the actual tile (3.5in. x 3.5in.) that way it would not be seen when it was turned over and used as a coaster.

(Here is my cork, cut and ready to go!)

I then used black glue (so I could see what I was doing) on the back of the tile and placed my cork over top of it.

I only had to press down for 5-10 seconds and after that, my coaster was ready to go!

And finally….here is my final product:

(These were some of the first ones I finished.)

(I love the blues and browns. They work well together and make me happy every time I look at them!)

Just a Few Suggestions for Anyone Who Wants to Try This:

• Always, always, always use card stock paper! Any other will pucker in a most unattractive way when glue is placed on top of it. Save yourself the frustration!
• The original instructions say to use polycrylic (water-based) glue instead of the mod podge to coat the paper, but mod podge works just as well and is less expensive!
• Cork board may be a little more expensive than felt, but it looks professional!
• If you want to try this project, get a group of friends together. Its fun to do it with others and you can swap paper and ideas with each other.
• You can put song lyrics, quotes, and pictures on top of the paper. Just make sure you do a coat or two of mod podge over top to seal it in!
• Make sure you follow all timing instructions because they really are there for a reason!
• And last but not least….Have Fun!!!!