What Else To Do With All Your Paintings!

coasters from paintings

I was surfing the internet one day trying to get inspired to just DO something as the dog days of summer arrive early here in the South!  Anyway, I happened upon lots of tutorials and blog posts about making coasters with photos of your family, children, or using decorative papers, etc. 

I thought it would be a wonderful, different and useful way to display some of my paintings so I set out to try doing it for myself.  I know there are many places that offer to put photos on coasters but have you seen their prices?!!!!!  Many are over $20 each!  I like doing crafts and thought I could make my own to use as gifts and maybe sell.

Several tutorials and/or blog posts mentioned that the coasters were sticky when a hot cup of liquid was placed on them so I began to search for a way to avoid this.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to some things plus I already had orders for several sets of these!

I thought I'd finally found the answer when I stumbled upon the following tutorial:
http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/how-to-make-coasters.html

I was really excited because we had used the pour-on resins before and liked how the items looked.  I rushed right out and bought some and poured several of the coasters I'd prepared.  They looked beautiful.  Yes, I had one that had some tiny bubbles in it but, since I knew what to expect, I was really surprised that it was only the one that would have to be sanded down and re-poured.

OK, jump forward a couple of weeks.  I knew the cure time for the resin is fairly long so I thought that 2 weeks should be plenty of time and that a trial was in order.  I got the coaster that had the bubbles in it, a cup of hot coffee and settled down to watch the early morning news.  I lifted the cup to take my first sip and the coaster came up with it!!!!

Aaaaargh!  Not only did the coaster stick to the cup but when I pried them apart, there was an indentation from the cup embedded in the resin!!!!!   Double aaaaargh even though the indentation leveled itself after a few days!  This was really a disaster especially since one lady was waiting on the coasters so she could give them as a gift!  More searching online and I found that using a good quality paste wax and buffing it well would protect the coasters until they fully cured (which can take several weeks).  I did this and it did help some but I'm searching for another sealer for these coasters that I can use for last minute orders.  The pour-on resin makes for a beautiful finish and I'll probably be using it for future coasters as it's also used to protect table and bar tops and should be very durable.

But in the short-term?  Maybe I need to rethink what else I can use my paintings for!  Ideas, anyone?