When I was looking for fun, easy crafts for my daughters art themed birthday party, I ran across this post. These were creative beautiful creations, and they seemed pretty simple to do. They would require some adult participation, but I thought I would try them out before the party. My kids were a great test subject for these creative tile coasters. I wanted to see how long it took do this craft, and I was also curious if this craft could be done at a birthday party with several kids.
What you’ll need:
- shiny ceramic tile coasters 4×4 (these are the ones you use in your home)
- sharpie markers (not metallic)
- 91% rubbing alcohol
- pan with a little lip on the side (cookie sheets or aluminum baking pans work great)
- aluminum foil
- polyurethane sealer (mine is brush on but they sell this in spray)
- foam brush
- long lighter (like you would use to light the grill)
- OPTIONAL: small spray bottle with alcohol in it
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To begin, you will cover your pan with aluminum foil. Doing this will catch any alcohol that runs off of the coaster later, and keep your pan from getting stained with marker.
Decorating your creative tile coaster
Then, you will color your ceramic tile in any way you want. You can scribble or make a pattern, the choice is yours.
Next, you will need to place your colored tile into your foil covered pan. Like the green and pastel tile above.
Then, pour a small amount of alcohol onto your tile. Now, move your pan around slowly until the whole tile is covered in alcohol. You may need to add more alcohol, BUT don’t go crazy with it. Adding a small amount of alcohol at a time is the best method.
Choosing how to set your design
Now, you have two choices.
First, you can just leave the tile to air dry and come back to it later OR,
Second, you can have the kids move back and light your alcohol tile on fire.
If you choose the first option, the colors tend to come out a little brighter. With the fire method the colors will fade just a bit, but it’s still very beautiful. Don’t worry though, the flames don’t go too high and it only burns for about a minute or so. IF YOU PUT TOO MUCH ALCOHOL IT WILL BURN MUCH LONGER!!!
NOTE: If you don’t like how your coaster looks you can use alcohol to clear it and start over. All you have to do is put alcohol on a rag or paper towel and wipe off the spots you don’t like or clear the whole tile.
After the first burn you can use the optional spray bottle filled with alcohol and spritz the tile. This will give them more of a “granite” look. Then you will need to burn the alcohol off one more time.
Finishing up your Creative Tile Coasters
Let your tiles sit somewhere to completely dry for the night. DO NOT stack them!! If there is any residual alcohol left on the bottom of the tiles, it will distort or clear the coloring from the tile it is stacked on top of.
Once the tiles are dry you can seal them with the Polyurethane sealer.
After the tiles are sealed and dried, flip them over and add the felt circles. Place one felt circle to each of the 4 corners on the bottom.
To my surprise these creative tile coasters were fairly easy. I think you would be able to do this with several kids. However, I would suggest having an adult or two manning the alcohol and lighter station. The tiles really only take about a minute or so to burn off the alcohol. So there wouldn’t be a long wait for this step. And, if I were doing this for a party I would definitely use the spray polyurethane. My kids wanted to keep making these, even though they each made a set of 4.
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