DIY Map Coasters: Country Living Knock-Off

I have been super inspired by my shelter magazines as of late. Just a couple of days ago I showed you my DYI Brass Cornered Frames that I copied from House Beautiful. This time it was Designer Nathan Harkrader who inspired me with his map coasters. I stumbled upon them in Country Living. The great thing is that I ended up pulling these off for $1.25!

……………………..my inspiration

I started out in the tile aisle wanting to use tumbled tile like in the magazine. But then when I started picking them up and feeling them, it suddenly dawned on me that with two little ones in scurrying about it would be a big mistake to have heavy breakable tiles sitting around. Next to the tile section in my local home improvement store were these fantastic laminate samples. And do you know what? They are free. Shhhh. I picked up four of them.

What I used:

• 4 samples of laminate flooring
• one piece of scrapbook paper
• spray adhesive
• urethane

I think my friend Chris from Just A Girl has made some pretty cute coasters using the same type of thing. My dear hubby used his table saw to cut off the one uneven edge and to square them off. What I love is that they already have a layer of foam attached to the bottom. Ta da!

There is a super cute scapbook store in our neighborhood so I scooped up three pieces so I could decide once I was home which one I liked best.

Once I traced and cute four squares of paper, I used craft bond to adhere them to the coasters. After they dried, I applied two coats of urethane to the top of each one. Although these will mainly be used for cocktails and wine glasses when we entertain, I wanted to make sure they were water resistant so they would not be damaged.

……………………. map coasters

And for a grand total of $1.25 {for the paper} I am ready to invite you over! {I had the spray adhesive and urethane already on hand}. What do you think? Maybe not an exact match to the tile inspiration coasters, but they are making me smile.

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