How to Make Coasters

Featured Pro: Carter Oosterhouse
Category: Home Décor
Time: 2:59


CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Hey, I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and this is another GMC Trade Secret.

Now, today I’m going to show you how to make a bunch of different coasters out of materials that you may not have thought about using before.

Now, the first one that I made is this little rope coaster. And I simply took some rope. It has a nice little pattern on it. And I simply wound it around itself using a hot glue gun, you know, pretty much putting a piece of glue every inch or so.

Now, the next one I made is this cork. And what I did was I put a decoupage finish on the face of it, and then I took some wallpaper and plastered that on the face of the cork. And then I put this decorative applique on the face of that and decoupaged the entire face of it to give it a nice, glossy finish.

Now, over here I used some balsa wood. And you can see it’s just some thin scraps of wood. Then I put this nice decorative transparency. And again, I just applied it right on top. And over here you can see I just used some layers. I have the balsa wood on the back, the decorative transparency, and then some cork with a nice little cutout. And again, I put some decoupage on the top of it to give it a nice, glossy finish.

Now, this next coaster is really cool. All I did was pick up some ceramic tile, which you can get at pretty much any second-hand store. Then you can use the tile alone. And if it has a decorative finish, if it’s old, if it’s artistic, that’s pretty neat unto itself. But we want to make sure the first thing that you do is put these felt pads on the back side. Again, they come in different sizes – cork or felt or even plastic.

What I’m going to do, now that I have my felt pads on the bottom – it won’t scratch up the table – is I’m going to take a nice little C that I have a little cutout. I’m going to put some glue on the back side of it. I’m going to place the C on the face of this tile, nice and centered. And then I’m going to take another applique or decorative transparency.

Now, again, you can either use glue or you can use a decoupage if you want to. Either/or will work. Or if you want to, just glue the back side of your applique and then put a decoupage right over top. What I would recommend also is putting a heavy weight or a book like that over top so it really smoothes out everything and doesn’t leave any air pockets. I’m going to keep this book on probably for about five or 10 minutes.

All right. So now I’m going to take the weight off, and you can see this applique is on nice and smooth. But to really finish it off, I’m going to use this decoupage or Mod Podge. You can even use Elmer’s glue. And that will give it a nice glossy finish, but also will prevent condensation from getting in between the tile and the applique.

Now, here’s a unique way to make coasters unlike anybody else’s you’ve ever seen.

I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.