A Place to Rest your Drink?

So I got another Father's Day gift knocked out today, and I'm very excited to share it with you all. I've been on a definition kick lately and since there are a plethora of baseball terms to choose from, I decided that we needed some baseball terms defined for these coasters. I also bought this Omni Transfer Medium a while ago, and have not had a chance to use it until now. Other than being messy, and probably needing to improve my technique, I'm very happy with how they turned out. :) So without further ado, on to the show!

Stuff you'll use:

4" square tiles
cork mat
Gorilla Glue
Omni Transfer Medium
Clip Art
Modge Podge

What you'll do:

Size the clip art to fit the tile. I would make the print about 3-1/2" square. Print out your clip art using a laser printer or copier. According to the transfer medium ink jet prints do not play well.

The directions on the medium say to paint three coats onto your image. First coat horizontally, second coat vertically and then the last coat diagonally. Let it dry between coats and then after the final coat.

This is the 2nd coat. The paper will wrinkle up and what not, but don't worry it'll work out. :) 

While your images are drying you can cut your cork to fit the bottom of a tile. I would cut the cork to slightly smaller than the tile.

I picked up the white gorilla glue. It said it dried twice as fast as the brown glue and was waterproof....probably useful given what we're doing. :) I wiped down the tiles with a damp cloth and then applied the glue to the backside. make sure to get close to the edges but not too close. Don't worry if the glue  expands past the edges, you can remove it later. Press your cork onto the back of the tile. You'll need to weight your cork and tiles down. So what I did was layer each tile/cork piece between a foam plate then on top of all that I placed a vase filled with gravel and flowers. It was a very lovely tower. :) After the glue dried, I went back and just picked off the glue that seeped from the edges. Your fingernail will do just fine.

When your images are nice and dry, trim around them leaving a 1/4" margin. Lay them in a shallow bowl, sink or Tupperware filled with water and let them soak for at least 20 minutes. After they've soaked for a bit, take one of the images out with the backside up, start rubbing the paper off. I would scratch the paper with my nail and then just rub my finger gently back and forth to remove the paper. Once I got all most all of the paper off, I put it back in the water and moved on to the next one.

After I finished rubbing the paper off all of the images with my finger I then went back with a lint-free towel and gently rubbed the backside again. This removed a little more paper. Let all of your images dry completely.

Don't do this. 

This works better. :) 

Once the images have dried, brush more medium onto the tops of your tiles. Then center your images over the tile and set into place. I burnished the tops and edges with my fingers (part of the mess mentioned earlier) to make sure there were no air bubbles or folds, etc. If there were I gently worked them out, or lifted the image and then laid it down again. Be very careful during this step because you can rip the image. After I was happy with how everything was set, I left them alone to dry. You can also trim the image if need be during this step.

I sealed mine with some modge podge after everything was said and done, just to create another moisture barrier. I don't know if this is necessary, but its what I did. :)

Place into decorative container and put them to work.

The obligatory coffee shot. :) 

I hope you guys enjoyed today's lesson. :) These were a lot of fun to make, and I'm sharing with you these images in case you want to make your own set of baseball coasters for the Dad in your life.

Update!

I'm pleased to announce that this project is a DIY Club finalist!




Enjoy your day!