DIY Scrabble Coasters

Most of you have seen these coaster on Pinterest. Well, I hit the jackpot and got a bag full of Scrabble tiles for $15 at an antique store. 


My mom is doing a lot of cute game accents in her cabin, so I thought I'd do some Scrabble coasters for part of her birthday present.  I also decided to do some for our new home and added a little twist with paint to ours.
 
I started by gathering my supplies at our local Fred Myers.  I found a Minwax Dark Walnut Stain to paint on the the specific word tiles.  I chose Dark Walnut so that it was a fairly high contrast from the regularly light colored tiles. 

Next, I grabbed a package of large squares of cork, some inexpensive crafting paint brushes, and Elmer's Wood Glue. 

Once I got home I pulled out my tiles, found the words I wanted to accentuate on my coasters, and started painting the finish right on.  Depending on your tiles (glossy or more rough), the finish will either sit on the top and need a lot of time to dry (couple days) or soak right in.  I had a combination, so I had to let my tiles dry for a couple days. 

 

Once my stained tiles were dry, I placed them on the cork in the order I wanted and began gluing them down.

Once all the pieces were glued down, I put something heavy ontop, while they finished drying.  This helps keep the coaster flat while it dries, just make sure you wipe any excess glue away that has seeped out the edges.

 

I let the coasters dry for about a day to make sure they were really solid and then used an exacto knife to cut the coasters out of the larger piece of cork.  They were pretty easy to cut, since they were secured down to the cork.  Last, I did two coats of a polyerithane to help seal out moister from cups sitting on them down the road! 

WHITE WASH VERSION:

 

I did some white washed coasters for our new home that turned out super cute!! I tend to lean toward a coastal look at times, so I am calling these my COASTAL COASTERS!  The only thing I did differently on these, was I ran a fine piece of sand paper over the non-stained tiles after they were already glued to the cork.  Then I did a dry brush technique to the top of the sanded tiles. The key to successful dry brushing is hardly any paint on your brush. I dabbed most of the paint off and then did gentle streaks across the sanded tiles.

So what do you think?  Adding the white dry brushing is definitely Simple & Sweet!