Chalkboard Paint and Picture Coasters

As you probably read last week, my nephews lost their father at the young age of 31. My family is big on sentimental      keepsakes after a death. I wanted to give something to my sister and nephews in memory of my brother in-law but didn't really know what to offer. I decided to go with something I find comfort in, photos. 

I wanted to give them something original and a framed photo seemed much less thoughtful. I wanted this to be a gift I spent time on and put love into rather than throwing a few pictures into frames and calling it good.

I had snapped a few photos a little over a year ago of their family that I thought turned out great. I had them made into 4x4" squares and decided to turn them into coasters. I also wanted to include a quote to go along with them, so I picked up a few extra tiles to paint with chalkboard paint and write the quote in chalk.

It turned out so well that I think I will be giving these as Christmas gifts this year as well. 

They would actually be a great gift for any occasion. So here's what I did.

I used 4.25"x4.25" square tiles I found at Lowe's for $0.16 each. 

I used felt for a nonslip backing. I purchased this at Walmart for $0.23 a sheet. I traced the tile onto the felt, allowing about 1/4" of the tile to hang off as I traced. I did not want the backing to cover the entire surface.

I secured the felt to the tile with four small beads of hot glue in the corners.

Before applying chalkboard paint I lined the outer edges on the face of the tile in painters tape.

I applied a very thick coat of chalkboard paint to the tile. (The paint must dry for 24 hours).

To add the pictures to the tile I used decoupage. Apply an even coat to the back of the picture and press firmly to the tile, holding for several seconds.

Next, apply very even coats of Modge Podge over the entire front surface of the tile and photo. You will need to apply 4-5 coats, allowing each coat to dry between.

Once dry, spray 2-3 coats of clear sealer onto each tile coaster. 

Finally, write on the chalk paint. I chose sentimental, memory quotes for these coaster. I used a very thin chalk pencil to write my quotes. See example.

To complete the gift, I stacked the coasters and tied a ribbon around them. The center coasters hold the memory photos and the top and bottom coasters contain chalkboard quotes.