Several years ago I made a set of these awesome coasters, and I have been so impressed with how they have stood up over time. This year, my church small group has made about 30 sets of these to sell for charity, and since I feel like quite the expert now I thought I would share! Believe it or not these are really easy and inexpensive, but they make an awesome gift for the holidays!

Materials

  • Mod Podge – You don’t need a ton of this. If you are only buying it for this project, get the smallest size bottle.
  • Scrapbook Paper
  • 4 inch White Tiles – I purchased these for 16 cents each at Lowes. They can be found in the section with the bathroom tiles.
  • Felt Circles (self sticking dots work great!)
  • Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Paintbrush

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1. Choose your paper. You can use any paper you want! If you don’t already have lots of this floating around your house that you want to use, you can purchase individual sheets at your local craft store. I especially love the ones I got from AC Moore because they are thicker and are double sided, so you get two coordinating prints…perfect for this project! I paid 25 cents per sheet. Score! You can also print images with your printer.

2. Draw and cut squares that are just under 4 inches long. You will need one square per tile. You could also use a paper cutter for this. You want your squares to be just slightly smaller than your tiles so that the paper doesn’t need to attach to the part of the tile that curves downward.

3. Make sure your tile is clean (I needed to wipe a little dust off of mine first) and dry. Paint a very thin coat of Mod Podge onto the tile. Immediately place your square of paper on the tile and press firmly with the ball of your hand over the entire surface of the tile. This seems to be the trick to avoiding bubbles. Let dry for about 10 minutes.

4. Paint a thin layer of Mod Podge over the paper on your tile, going all the way to the edge of the tile. This is when air bubbles tend to appear if they are going to. Don’t panic…wait a minute or two for the coat to begin to dry, and then press them down. They will most likely disappear when they are completely dry. Let dry for about 10 minutes. Then paint a second thin coat, then allow them to dry overnight.

5. Add a piece of felt to all 4 corners of the bottom of each tile. These make it easier to stack your coasters together. Additionally they prevent your tiles from scratching the surfaces they sit on. If you don’t want to buy the prepackaged ones, you can hot glue small felt pieces to the bottom of the tiles (this is a much less expensive option).

That’s it! The best part is that, even though they are durable and will last for years, if you aren’t happy with the way they turn out, or you want to change the style later, they are pretty easy to take apart. Using something sharp, peel up one corner of the paper. It should pull off the tile. The remaining Mod-Podge can be peeled off or removed from the tile with water.