It's been a while!

I find it amazing how so much time can escape us.  I like to think that prioritizing well still costs us time in another area and that explains the gaps.  If you have children and the holidays come, this is what happens to us.  Today is my 10th Momiversary. My oldest, Max, was born ten years ago today.  The young man he is becoming inspires me to be a better mother, because he deserves nothing less. His empathy for others is sometimes astounding and definitely humbling.  I took the day off of work and waved him off to school with 26 bags of Charms Sno-Ball Cotton Candy for his friends and teacher, leaving me here to post.

Well one of the things on my busy list was a table at a holiday gift boutique for which I made some stone tile coasters.  I found a great tutorial on SCS you find here.  I used some different Ippity and Unity sets and learned some lessons along the way. For example, while I liked the idea of quotes on them, it didn't turn out too great because there are some natural imperfections in the unglazed stone tiles that broke up the words.  The Christmas coasters using Ippity's Season of Joy set were by far the biggest hit.  Here are some directions and pictures.

You will need: unglazed 4x4 stone tiles from hardware store, rubber stamps, StazOn inks, clear spray paint (I used Krylon matte), small felt or foam circles with adhesive already on one side

1.  Choose your center image(s).  Stamp them on post it notes near the top of the paper. Cut them out and put them aside. These will be your masks.

2. Wipe your tiles to make sure they are dust free and dry.

3.  Stamp your desired center image on your tiles.  Take your time! This tile is porous and once it is on there, you aren't going to be able to get it all off even if you are very fast.  Repeat for a set of 4 coasters.  Set aside to dry, at least 15 to 20 minutes.

4.  Place your post it note mask over your center image with the adhesive from the post it note holding it in place.  Ink up your background image and stamp onto the tile with the center image covered.  Repeat for the whole set.  Set aside to dry, this time as long as you can since the next step is spraying with clear coat, at least an hour.  At this point, in the sets with the butterfly and dragonfly (see below) I used a q tip and very small amounts of StazOn to color in the wings.  These turned out very well as the images don't require crisp lines to be beautiful.

5.  In a well ventilated area, lightly spray with clear coat.  I recommend doing two light coats as the dampness from the spray will make your stamped images run if it is even slightly too heavy.

6.  When clear coat is completely dry, add a foam or felt pad on each corner of coasters.  Tie with a ribbon and you have a beautiful gift!

Christmas set using "Season of Joy"

Using "Song of My Heart" by Ippity

These are the little felt feet and in the upper left corner of the photo you can see the ones I did using the butterfly from a Melody Ross Unity kit

Dragonfly set using Unity SSK Dragonfly and Unity "Giving it all meaning" as the background



Sorry for the glare!  Background is a HA cling and the sentiment is from Ippity "Devoted" set



As always, if you would like to order your Ippity stamps please email me! I have more sets than are currently on my blog/Ippity page.  If you want to buy a whole seasons release you can get them crazy cheap, almost cost!!!  Check it out here. Thanks for looking and have a fabulous Christmas season!

Kelly