A few weeks ago, just after knocking through our kitchen and dining room, we were lucky enough to find a box of tiles in our cellar to patch up our missing kitchen tiles.
Instead of throwing them away (after using some to patch up our wall), we came up with a little crafty project to use them on – Instagram Coasters. We’re always adding random snapshots of our project and life to our Instagram feed, so it seemed a good idea to use them for something.
This is what you will need:
- Prints of your Instagram images
- Tiles
- Spray glue
- PVA
- Paintbrush
- Masking Tape
- Felt
This is how we made them:
1. The first step is almost the hardest – choose the Instagram pictures that you want to turn into coasters! Then print them onto some paper – we printed them with our standard inkjet printer onto some slightly thicker paper. It’s a good idea to leave a large enough edge around the image so that you can wrap the paper around the tile and cover any rough edges.
2. Spray the reverse side of your print thoroughly with some glue. It’s important to completely cover the paper so that it completely adheres to the tile (otherwise it’ll cause air bubbles later on). Then just stick the image onto the tile.
Our Tip: We first tried using PVA to glue down the picture, but it ended up making the paper image wavy. Sticking it down with spray glue gives a much smoother finish, but PVA would probably work if you paint it smoothly onto the tile first.
3. When the glue has dried, wrap the paper around the tile, pull it taught and secure it on the back with some masking tape or glue. It’s a good idea to trim the corners at this stage, too. It just makes them a bit neater later on.
4. The next step is to seal the picture. Paint at least 3 coats of PVA over the tile, letting each coat try thoroughly before applying the next – this should make your tiles waterproof. Painting them with PVA (which will dry clear) not only seals the coaster, it also gives them a nice sheen.
5. The last step is to cover the back of the coaster with some felt.
We found it easiest to glue a piece of felt to the back that was slightly too large and then trim it to size using the tile as a guide for your scissors.
And that’s all there is to do it. From start to finish the project only took about 30 minutes (ignoring the drying time of the PVA) and cost nothing because we had all of the supplies already lying around the house.
Do you love Instagram as much as we do? Do you have a way of displaying your Instagram images?
What type of paper did you print on–and what did you print with–laser, copier, ink-jet, etc. Love the project so cute. First time on your blog! Off to check out some more of it.
Thanks, so glad that you like it & found your way over to us! We just printed the images onto some normal printer paper with our ink-jet printer. Absolutely nothing fancy. The paper was a bit thicker than normal printer paper – I’d guess around 90g/m². But I’m pretty sure any normal paper would be fine, too.
In addition to coating everything with PVA, we’ve been considering adding an extra final coat of varnish to make sure that everything is completely sealed (we had one small blistering problem with a very hot cup on one of our coasters).
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