Acrylic Painted Coasters

If you read the post on the Welcome Wreath, I mentioned a friend who recently purchased a home.  Well, this coaster set will be another housewarming gift!  There are a lot of ideas on Pintrest, but this acrylic paint method was most appealing to me.  

It was such a fun experience and I can’t wait to make all of my friends a set of coasters for birthdays and upcoming holiday gifts.

Hope you enjoy this project to keep you busy in quarantine! 

The tiles were purchased at Lowes.  I went into the store because I wanted to touch and feel the tile to be sure it would work.  I also wanted to purchase plant pots for a few plants.  You must wear your mask, even in the garden center, and definitely in the store. It was a great (and quick!) experience.  

The cork packing was purchased at Dollar Tree which was in the ‘Wood, etc’ section.   I already had the acrylic paint, masking tape, cups, brushes, glitter, and Mod Podge Acrylic Sealer. 

Products Purchased:

4”x4” White Gloss Wall Tile

4 Purchased:  $0.60 from Lowes (total price!)

Adhesive Cork Sheet by Crafter’s Square

$1.00 from Dollar Tree

(Products I owned)

Acrylic Paints from Michaels

Masking Tape (but please use Painter’s Tape instead!)

Paper Cups with water droplets

Small brush

Paper Plate to catch the dripping paint

Mod Podge Super Hi-Shine Acrylic Sealer

Optional glitter powder

I first used the masking tape to seal off half of the tile since that’s the look I liked best.  It would give a crisp cut kind of look.  Please note:  The masking tape did not catch the paint mixture fully as it seeped through the line so I recommend using proper painters tape which I will try for the next one!

To make the paint mixture, I first used a tablespoon of tap water and then added two drops of paint.  However, it was very watery still so I ended up with each cup having six drops of paint into a tablespoon of water.  It turned out to be a 50/50 ratio of paint to water to make this kind of clear-paint look.  For the next set of coasters I will try a 70/30 paint to water ratio to make the colors pop a bit more.  Stay tuned for that one!  I used the end of the small paint brush to stir the mixture together.

 

Keep the paper plate under your working space as you do the pouring.  First, I picked up the tile, holding the corner which was taped-off.  With my other hand, I held and the paper cup about two inches above the tile and then tilted it to pour the blue paint mixture onto the tile. Then I picked up the yellow paint cup and poured a bit directly into the blue paint circle on the tile.  Then I moved the tile piece from side to side to “swish” the paint around the white space of the tile to fully cover it.  Be careful as the paint mixture will be dripping onto the paper plate below! 

I used the small paint brush to pull some of the paint to the edge where it wasn’t going naturally with the pull of the paint mixture.  I then set each tile onto a used plastic package to set and dry.  It was a beautiful thing to see! 

 

I liked the look, but thought it needed a little something extra.  I found some glitter make-up that I never use, and used the small brush to lightly tap some of the power mixture into the wet paint.  It was so interesting to see the result because it made the paint kind of bubble up.  How cool is science?! 

 

Here is the final look of the painting and glitter-sprinkle process!

I let it dry for about 30 minutes.  Since there was a 50/50 water to paint ratio, it dried quickly.  I then moved the tiles outdoors to spray the Mod Podge Acrylic Sealer.  After the first spray layer, I came back to check on it and go in for the second spray later and to my surprise there were black specks on the white corner of the tile!  I realized that because it was a very windy day in Chicago, and I had just planted pots on the deck, a lot of soil was still on the deck that I didn’t see and the wind blew it onto the tile with the sticky sealant!  Luckily, I was able to blow most of it off, but some soil specks were settled in to stay and have now become part of the coaster!  

Lessons learned here will hopefully help you to avoid this added art element when you do any outdoor work! 

Once the sealer was totally dry, I cut out the cork squares from the cork sheet and placed them to the back of the tile.  I applied pressure to all sides of the tile to ensure it adhered well.  It’s essential for the sealer to be fully dry to do this step, so I’d let the sealer dry for at least an hour.  The tiles came out so beautiful, I can’t wait to do more.

 

If you do this project, comment below and we would love to see how they turned out!