Handmade Christmas 2011: Photo Tile Coasters

A few months ago I saw these fantastic photo tile coasters over at the blog Oopsey Daisy. And I bookmarked the tutorial for future reference knowing this would make a great little Christmas gift. Since then I've seen these pinned all over Pinterest too. They are so cute & they were super easy to make & inexpensive-the best kind of handmade gifts! And I always love a chance to play around with resin! With my parents coming next week I suddenly was realizing I needed to get their gift done ASAP.

Luckily we had these awesome family photos from last year, so I made some photo tile coasters:

I just printed my photos in 4" x 6" size from Costco (only $0.13 each), bought shiny white 4" x 4" tiles (only $0.16 each), bought the small circle felt mounting circles (can't remember how much they cost, but not much for a lot of circles) & then bought a small box kit of resin (was $9.99, but I used a 50% off Michaels coupon).

So I just cropped my photos to 4" x 4" size & glued them down on the coasters with a glue stick. Then I covered the tiles with resin to seal it on there. Plus the resin will withstand the heat or cold that comes from placing a glass or mug on them. My tip with the resin is to follow the directions EXACTLY! And not to put too much on because it spreads & levels out by itself. I had some overflow over the sides which I then had to use a razor blade to scrape off later, but if you raise them up a little bit on something before you put the resin on it will just drip off over the sides & you probably won't have to do that. Tip for next time! I let them dry for 3 days & then just stuck the felt mounting circles on the bottom. Done! For the original tutorial for this & more detailed directions click here.

I decided to go ahead & make us a set too while I was at it:

I love them! They are so nice & shiny! And they really do look so much better in person than in my photos here.

I tied a pretty ribbon around the set for my parents & they're all ready for gifting:

Thanks to Alison over at Oopsey Daisy for the fabulous idea! You should just check out her blog anyway because it's great!