Quick and Easy Guilded Coasters

I've never owned a real end table. In fact, as someone who has lived in tiny apartments and uninsulated houses with multiple roommates for a decade, I've never owned a piece of wood furniture I cared enough about to "coast." Now suddenly I've got two end tables with wood finishes that I can't set a beer glass of ice water on without worrying. So, for the first time I needed coasters.

Although I've had a couple of adventures in coaster making before, some more successful than others, I wanted to try something new (only partly because I wasn't thrilled with my last attempts). So, I went to Home Depot and bought four 4"x 4" white ceramic tiles for 13 cents a piece. Then, I went to JoAnns and bought a sheet of sticky back felt for a whopping $1.09.

Back home, I pulled out a roll of blue masking tape and cut it (this is a great task for phone calls with your parents, by the way) in to chevrons. I got lazy half way through so I made some with stripes instead.

I gave the masked tiles one quick coat with gold spray paint that I had laying around, and I pulled the tape off carefully before the paint dried. Then, I gave them all a quick spray with a spray on lacquer that was leftover from another project.

To keep the bottoms from scratching the finish off my table. I cut 16 small (1 cm) squares out of the sticky back felt and placed one on each corner of the tiles. With a 9 x 12 sheet of felt, I could have made enough of these for everyone I know.

The outcome: trendy guilded gold chevron coasters for less than $2 in less than an hour. Come have a drink at my place. I've got coasters.