DIY marble coasters

DIY marble coasters

I’m so excited about the DIY project I have for you today. You’d never know by looking at these marble coasters that they’re homemade — or that they’re so easy to make!

As soon as I saw the carerra marble tiles that we used for our bathroom floor, I said, hmm, these sure would make good coasters. So when we had some leftovers at the end, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.

Here’s what you need:

• a sheet (or partial sheet) of marble floor tiles. You can easily pick up individual sheets of tile at a hardware store, just look for something that’s about 3×3″ or 4×4″ to fit your average-sized glass. These are the ones we used.
• marble sealer (like this)
• roll of cork (like this)
• sponge
• gloves
• scissors
• any kind of strong glue. I used gorilla glue.

Step one: seal your tiles. I’m honestly not sure if this step is totally necessary, but I figured sealing the marble might help prevent stains down the road. I just dabbed some of the sealer on my sponge while wearing gloves, wiped it on the tiles making sure to get it onto all the edges and the top, waited about five minutes and used a dry cloth to wipe off the excess. Sometimes you need to scrub a little with your dry cloth to remove some of the wet marks from the sealer.

Step two: after cutting all the tiles off of the sheet, I put some glue on the back, then set the tile onto the cork.

Step three: I put a pile of magazines on top of the tiles/cork to make sure they had a chance to really stick together. I meant to leave them for maybe half an hour but I ended up leaving them overnight. (and repainted my nails in the meantime!)

Step four: cut off the excess cork. Some of the glue seeped out, but that just easily cut away with scissors.

Step five: make yourself a drink and enjoy your new marble coasters!

I love the way my new marble coasters turned out. I think they look sophisticated and not-at-all homemade. We’re having a party this weekend, so I can’t wait to show them off.

–Kerry