Personalized Coasters

Back on May 30th, I posted about doing coasters as presents.  Well, we decided that since we were going to be making wine glasses and mugs for my husband's parents, we might as well make them some personalized coasters too.  There are craftier ways to do this such as these three sites, but I wanted to do something quick and easy.  So, we purchased some transfer paper which is made for pretty much everything, especially tile, for $19.70.  If you would like to purchase the same kind check out my amazon store.  We also purchased the follow items.

• 24x48 Cork Roll for 9.99
• 25 Rialto Beige tile for $0.37 with ended up being $9.25
• 3oz. bottle of Contact Cement for $4.97
• 11.5oz can of gloss Helsmman urethane for $9.09
• We had a can of satin already on hand

So, the total for everything for this project is going to be$33.30.  We have made 6 coasters for my husband's mother and 6 for my husband's father.  We made 4 coasters for my mother and 4 coasters for my sister.  Then we made 4 coasters for a friend and we had purchase 1 extra coaster to test out the whole process for ourselves.  We of course still have a bunch of cork, contact cement, urethane, and transfer paper left over.  The first thing we did was find a font that we liked from this website.  Then we sized it to the size we liked on our paint program.  From there, we printed them onto the transfer paper using the instructions on the package. Then cut them out.  There is one thing we would do different next time.  We would cut the letters out and do it the size of the tile itself, that way you can't see the edges of the transfer paper.  

Then we got a bowl of water and put it in the water for 60 seconds.  It was so fun watching them shrink up.

please ignore the mess in the background. 

After that we peeled the white backing off of the paper and placed it on the tile.

Once the transfer paper dries it will turn white and you will need to spray it with urethane.

While the urethane was drying we cut the cork and I just want to show you this huge pile of cork!

Once the urethane dried, we used the contact cement and glued the cork to the bottom of the tile.

Here are the completed tiles.  What do you think?

The coasters we are giving to a friend.  He is a Bangles fan

Check back tomorrow for another make it yourself gift and for more gift ideas, check out my other DIY gifts.