Alcohol Ink Coasters

It started out little and then blossomed into something big….

When I was making trips back and forth to Lacrosse to the doctor this Spring I stopped at my favorite little shabby-chic shop in Hoka, Minnesota, Uncommonplace.  There she had some super cute little painted coasters.  I told her I loved them and even bought one.  She said it was made with alcohol ink.  I had never heard of it and was soon on a mission to find out more.

After watching a few videos on Youtube I had decided that I wanted to try to have my childcare kiddos do these for Mother’s Day presents for their moms. I ordered the supplies I needed off Amazon…here’s the two main things you need:  the paint or ink, alcohol, sharpies, and canned air.  If you click on any of those it will take you to Amazon so you can see what the product we used is.

The process is super relaxing.  It would be the absolute perfect thing to do with some girlfriends and a bottle of wine.  I have to admit that making them is a little addictive too.

Here are Craig and Kalissa giving it a try….

Here’s Kelli.

Karl and Renae came a tried it too.  I forgot to get a picture of them.

I needed to make the process easier and less messy for the childcare kids so we started out like this…

I took a white tile and colored it with Sharpie markers.  

Next I put drops of the alcohol solution that I listed above.  That blends and waters the colors down making them bleed.  After that I sprayed it with a little canned air.  My first one turned out like this…

After it dries we took the black Sharpie and blackened the side edges.

If you want to do more of an adult version cover the tile with alcohol first then drop ink onto the tile.  Add ink and alcohol as you desire…blowing with the canned air as you please.  It’s so relaxing and completely carefree.  It’s a great project to do.  We all had an awesome time making them.  Neighbor Girl was over and got in making them too.

The following ones were all done with ink drop method, not the Sharpie method.  These are Kalissa’s.

Karl was super serious with his wanting to make actual art-art type coasters.  He took a semester of Chinese in college and this one has Chinese characters that he drew a Sharpie and then paint dropped onto them.  He explained it all to me with a peace, war and love theme but sadly I don’t remember it all but it suppose represent that love conquers.

These are Kelli’s.  She was in love with the metallic ink.  A vial of gold glitter came in the pack of ink I bought and I LOVED working with it…as did Kelli.

These are Renae’s.  The top one is my favorite.  Karl and Renae appear to be more abstract thinkers and are great with non-symmetrical.  I can’t get myself to do that but I love seeing theirs.

Happily a few weeks before we did this I hit a garage sale that had two boxes of white tiles.  I got the two boxes for $5 all together.  That allowed everyone to make as many tiles as they wanted.  It was SO-SO fun.  I highly recommend giving it a try.

To finish the coasters we painted the side edges black.  We sprayed clear spray paint over the top and we added little felt pads to the underside so the tile won’t scratch furniture.  I think they make cute little coaster.

That was out fun day!!