Coasters!! An amazing way to keep the house clean from stains/water rings and an even better way to experiment, make something interesting and give your home a personal touch.
A few months back I made tile coasters with old family pictures as a gift for my mom and she loved it. So I decided to make a set for myself, but in a different style this time. Being far away from home, here in the U.S., I feel more drawn towards decorating my house in a style which speaks of my culture and in turn makes it unique. I feel happy and proud whenever our American colleagues/friends come over for parties or dinners and notice these small but prominent decors around the house from India and want to know more about the culture.
Coming back to the coasters, Indians like everything colorful and bright. So I decided to make square shaped cloth tea coasters with pretty borders my mom sent me from India.
This is how they turned out, and to be honest, I was not disappointed a bit.
Materials Required:
- Any colorful cloth material
- Pretty Borders/Laces to embellish the coaster as per your choice
- Embroidery Floss (any color you would like)
- Glue Gun
- Scissors
- Polyfill for stuffing
- Cardboard for stencil
Procedure:
- Stencil for cutting out squares: I made a 3.5 inch square from a cardboard as a stencil to cut all my squares. You can change the size depending on how big or small coaster you are making. Although, the size I took was pretty good with the regular table glasses, anything smaller than 3.5 inches would have been too small. Once I had the stencil ready, I cut out the cloth pieces.
- Making the square pouch: Take two same colored cloth pieces together and keep them on top of each other, edge to edge. Now take the glue gun and glue the edges of two pieces together. Glue all three sides but leave one side for stuffing. Now flip the glued pieces and you will have a square pouch open from one side.
- Stuffing with polyfill: I wanted the coasters to have some softness and hence I used a very small amount of polyfill to stuff in the pouch. I used just enough to add a bit of puff to it, adding more would fail the purpose of the coaster (to sit straight under the glass). After stuffing the polyfill, glue the open edge shut.
- Lace it up: I used the pretty borders my mother sent me from an old saree (Indian attire) to lace the pouch from two sides. Glue the laces making sure they are in a straight line.
- Finishing touch: I did not want to leave the center space empty so I made two concentric circles and used black embroidery floss to do back stitch and fill it up a little bit. I also glued a piece of black cloth at the back of the coaster to hide the stitches and make it more stiff.
Let me know how you liked them or if you have any ideas/suggestions.
