DIY Coasters

Wait until you see our DIY Thanksgiving drink coasters!  We are pretty excited to share our DIY coasters for our Thanksgiving table.

Drink coasters will protect your dining room table from beverages that sweat.  Tile coasters with pictures are easy to make.  We are loving our new holiday drink coasters for Thanksgiving.  

Wow, can you believe Turkey Day is nearly here?  I cannot believe how quickly 2022 has flown by.  There is so much to be thankful for this year.  What are you thankful for?

Me?  I am thankful for so many things this year.  My family for one, I do not praise my husband enough on this dear blog of ours, but he is an amazing man!  I am thankful for our pup who keeps me on our toes, without him life would be dull, and I like to think we keep each other company since I have been home these past few months.  

I am thankful for you, reading this blog.  You have no idea how much this blog has been a blessing for me, keeping me busy, making new friends, and constantly changing up our home, which again keeps me busy!

Do you know when I hit the publish button nearly two years ago I wanted to retract it, and say nope, I am not ready... maybe another day I will hit publish.  That husband of mine, he said no.  You need to do this.  It is something you have always wanted to do, so see it through.  Just do it!  Well, here I am two years under my belt, and I'm still going, and going, kind of like the Energizer Bunny. 

It was a lot for me to keep up with that first year, blogging, working my full time gig, keeping up with Bentley, our home, married life, and everything else life threw our way, but I continued down this blogging path seeing where I would end up.  I kept coming up with new projects to share, and decorating ideas, and creating recipes, and seeing where this new blog life would take us.

Then last year things began to look a bit differently for me, and earlier this year, I had to walk away from my full time gig.  It was bittersweet for me, since I loved the folks I worked with, but it was time for me to take time for myself and my family.  I have not shared much about this past year, but I fell ill, and no one could really figure out why.

I was sent to many specialists, the first one having an idea, which several others did not agree with.  I kept being shuffled to new specialists, and they all had their own differing opinions, only I kept becoming more ill.  I was gasping for breath just walking across a room, I kept having allergic reactions to every drug prescribed to me, those were some scary times for sure, and just a tip of the iceberg of what was yet to come.  

For the most part, some folks just thought I had lost my voice and that was what was wrong with me, but was only a small part of what I was experiencing.  Looking back, I was in denial myself and did not want to admit I was ill, I kept going, working everyday, writing this blog of mine, and had no idea what direction I was heading, but darn it, I was going to keep up my stubborn persistence that was the one thing I did know.

In case you did not know, I am one stubborn bugger when I want to be.  It ended up being a good thing though because I kept asking questions, and seeking answers. 

Earlier this year, one of my specialists changed her mind, and agreed with the first one I was sent to.  My last ER visit was what finally changed her mind where I was gasping for breath to no avail a cause, and she said you know what?  Then proceeded to explain I had an adverse reaction to a vaccine.  So much inflammation had built up in my body that caused all of the allergic reactions, caused very severe asthma, and also caused my immune system to plummet and change.  She mentioned what people do not know is this can happen with any vaccine, who knew, right?

I thought wow, if only we could have gotten ahead of this last year when I first began developing symptoms, if someone would have just spoken up, maybe we would not have ended up where we are today.  

Nearly a year and a half later, I am finally to a stable status with breathing thankfully, which causes me to feel very fortunate and thankful this Thanksgiving.  I still do not have my voice back, but that doesn't stop me from being vocal, just ask my husband!  He will tell you I have no problem communicating despite my lost voice. 

I also still need to be careful with what I’m exposed to since they are working on building my immune system back up, but I’m thankful for answers, finally. Being exposed to certain illnesses could quickly unravel all of this progress so I’m not able to get out and about much.  

So in honor of Thanksgiving, and all I am thankful for, this year I am sharing a Thanksgiving craft, not my typical craft since I tend to let St. Nick take over Mr. Gobble, Gobbles holiday around here.  Mr. Gobble, Gobble will be the star of our Thanksgiving table this year though and I decided creating new coasters for our table would be the way to go.

From my previous posts, you know the Cricut and I are hard pressed friends.  I promised myself I would get her out and give her another try, so here we are.  When I was rummaging around in our basement this past week, I found a tote full of left over tile from a bathroom remodel on another home.  

All white, four inch tiles... I thought to myself what can I make with all of these tiles?  The first thought I had was to create Christmas coasters of course, since Christmas is my favorite holiday and thought they would be perfect for our dining room table.  Then I decided why not make Thanksgiving stand out with new coasters to celebrate all we are thankful for this year?

So Ms. Circut and I had to call a truce so we could get down to business and see about making these coasters.  You will see there were some changes made throughout the process and I will share what I have learned through my endeavors navigating the Cricut. 

I began with a turkey template (it's a free template, I love free, don't you) and thought I would add "Gobble till you Wobble" under each turkey.  While the Cricut may be wonderful for many things, I have not had luck with small printed letters.

  

If you have, please tell me your secret, all of your secrets when it comes to this complex machine.  I call it complex, and others think it is so easy to use.  I am still learning and have decided the only way is through.  How else does one learn?  right? 

I tried to make spice labels a few weeks ago, and it ended in frustration and disaster, and I even got Mr. VS flustered that evening, and not much tends to ruffle his feathers.  I am thinking small lettering is not a favorite when it comes to weeding out the letters and transferring them, but it could just be me?  

My lovely white four inch tiles, perfect for these coasters!  Don't you think?

Okay, now do you see my Gobble till you Wobble after it was cut?  Yeah, it did not work out so well so I nixed that one, but still used my golden turkeys.  I went with gold vinyl since it will match most any decor I put on our table year after year. 

Here are cork tiles I have had for probably 15-20 years... yes, that long, can you believe it?  I am not even sure what I picked them up for at the time, but I do that sometimes.  I see an item at an exceptional price and pick it up knowing I will do something with it, eventually... it may be 20 years later, but it will be used!  

I put my tile on top of the cork and traced out the tile, cut it out and then hot glued my tile to the cork.  The cork is a nice touch, and will save my dining room table from any more scratches!  Yeah for me.

I made the turkey coasters first, and then I decided I would try something with wording one more time.  Geesh... words, the Cricut, and I just do not go hand in hand in hand. What a pain! 

Be sure to clean your tile from any fingerprints or debris before you begin placing your sticker on the tile.

I had a laugh out loud moment here!  I placed the transfer sticker on top of the Gobble till you Wobble sticker I made, but I did not remove the back of the gold sticker before I put it on the tile.  I sat there and was like something is amiss here, and then I laughed, and I laughed hard.  I thought what an idiot I am!

Some days I entertain myself with these projects, the mistakes I make, and the moment I figure out what I have done, laughs usually follow.  Laughter is the best medicine afterall. 

Ok, so removing the back of the gold sticker without weeding out the letters is not an easy feat.  I had to keep putting them back on with my weeding tool, let's just say frustration levels were increasing by the minute.  I even used a 72 font, much larger than the 12 font I began with.  Can you tell patience is not my forte when it comes to something like this?  

People?  Now I have a lot of patience with people, children, and pups, but this sticker, and letters, and what to weed, and not to weed, and getting it all to look right?  Nope, not a lot of patience.  I am hoping with more experience it will get easier for me.  

Now you know why I mentioned picture coasters were easy, the turkeys were SO easy... the lettering, not so much.  

I used the smoothing tool and kept pushing those letters into the tile and then slowly removed the transfer sticker along with the gold background.

As you can see, I finally have a coaster worthy of Thanksgiving dinner.  Ok, so the dot in till is missing, but that thing was so minute, I am not even sure where it scampered off to.  I decided looking for it was a moot point, and said the heck with it.  It's for our dinner table, so I am not going to worry about it.

If I were selling these, I would make sure they were perfect, but for me?  I am going with perfectly imperfect for the win!  My sanity was more important today than being perfect.  

I had to test them both out, which one do you like best?  We have six place settings at our table so I made three turkeys and three gobbles.  Yes, one of my turkeys did not turn out, still getting the hang of this crafty madness. 

I cut over a previous mistake I made. What was that you ask? Well… I may have put the vinyl in upside down. Ha! I have both shiny and matte vinyl and I could not tell which side was which. See, I’m a learning.

I think I am partial to the turkey since he was easier to make, and I like to think they came out better.  Although I had a few bubbles under the sticker and despite my effort using my smoothing tool, those darn bubbles were not going anywhere.  So I decided again, it's for my table so I wasn't going to fuss over them.  I did not want it to rip my turkey from too much fussing.

There you can see the two different styles of drink coasters I created for our Thanksgiving dinner for next week.  It will be just the two or should I say the three of us next Thursday, Bentley is part of our small family and will so look forward to those bits of scraps that head his way all too often.  I guess all of the extra coasters will have to wait until next year to be used.  

I even looked at Thanksgiving dishes, but decided I do not need yet another set of dishes.  You may faint if you saw my dish collection.  I only completed a few full sets, and then have various partial sets.  I am a collector of many items, if you ask my husband, he will tell you I am a hoarder in the making, but we all know he is just overexaggerating.  

I felt a bit better after this project with the Cricut.  I was able to at least share the fruit of my labor, unlike some of my other projects and ideas I’ve began with my dear friend, Cricut.  The turkeys were the easiest of the two, and I think they turned out very cute.   

Is this a project you would try yourself?  Do you use coasters at the table?  I do, our table is wood, but does not have a laminate cover so I always have them there for people to use if we have visitors.  My best friend would tell you that I like things a certain way.  I will agree with her on this one.  No rings on our table, just scratches from the many projects completed at that dining room table.  

Did I fail to mention I have a crafting area now?  Yes?  Well, we will save that for another day.

Hope you enjoy the holiday with your friends and family and maybe this easy coaster project will give you a bit of inspiration.  I was thinking it would be a wonderful take away gift for your guests too, I just love sharing those memories with others.  Place one at each table setting and let your guests take them home at the end of the dinner.  What a great way to show you are thankful for those who have graced your table.  Don't forget to Gobble till you Wobble next Thursday, enjoy!