Autumn Marbled Tile Coasters

Autumn is one of the best times of the year as far as I’m concerned. For one, we get an extra hour of sleep and that’s never a bad thing. The weather goes from sweltering to comfortable during the day and chilly enough for a sweater in the evening and that is the perfect temperature as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps the best thing about Autumn is the amazing color palette that nature works with.

Those golds and reds and oranges are all fabulous and someday I’m going to see those colors on real trees in real life. Until then I can look at pretty pics on the internet and toss loads of garland around my front door to mimic the season that doesn’t happen where I now live.

This project has come about pretty interestingly, really. Later on this week I’m going to be volunteering at Rob’s booth at the arts and sciences festival for little kids. And there he’s going to be teaching the littles about the science of color. They’ll get to make their own coasters using the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue to mix and mingle and create the secondary colors of orange, violet, and green. I’m so excited about it and while making some for displays realized that they would be beautiful and totally grown up in fall colors. So here we go!

For this project you will need:

• Alcohol inks in fall colors
• a straw
• 4×4 white ceramic tiles
• felt sticky feet
• glossy topcoat spray

I have quite a few colors of alcohol ink so I took out the ones that were most seasonally appropriate and chose my favorites. In the end, I went with red, orange, yellow, and lime green. For the best end result, I’d suggest picking your favorite 4 colors to use for your coasters.

Place a drop or two of color onto the top (white) side of your tile. Use your straw to lightly blow the ink around into fun, unique shapes.

Continue to make several blobs of the first color. It is not necessary to have this dry before moving on to the next step.

Make more blobs using your second color, mine is red.

Continue with your third color, mine is orange, leaving small amounts of white space throughout the tile.

Use your last color to fill in the bulk of the white spaces. Know that the colors are going to overlap and they are going to mix every step of the way and that’s what is going to give you your pretty marbled look.

If you have a color you prefer go over the tile one last time making blobs of that color. I went back over my tile with orange.

Allow the ink to dry completely.

Spray a topcoat that is clear and glossy on top. You can use acrylic spray or spray polyurethane. The only important parts are that it be permanent and glossy.

The glossy sheen is what makes the colors pop and give our coasters a bright and fun look.

Place felt feet on the bottom of each tile so that they won’t scratch your delicate surfaces.

These guys are ready for some drinks. I may or may not have used this project as an excuse to run and get a venti white chocolate mocha thinking it would look pretty in the pictures. 🙂

This project is so simple a child can do it but so much fun even professional artists like my Rob think it is a blast. He literally said, “this is a lot of fun”. So grab some 13 cent tiles and fix them up to the prettiest coasters around with a little bit of ink!

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.