Cutest Coasters

Hello bloggers!

Not a whole lot going on today still enjoying this New York summer, which feels a lot like Texas autumn lol! Apparently mild summers are the trade off for extremely harsh winters, as I haven't seen temperatures go above 82 since we got here. Also the people around here consider the 80's hot and they all seem to migrate indoors and turn on their air conditioners meanwhile my family and I are out and about walking around enjoying the cool weather lol! All the while I'm thinking, 'yup this winter is gonna kick my rear'. Again I'm rambling and you know you missed it ^.^ ah good times good times. The topic of this post is actually the fact that I made some more coasters, yay how awesome is that?! Seriously I have yet another addiction, there's gotta be a hotline for this sort of thing... Since I'm in a whole new state I had to look around and see what craft stores were near by, had to mind you, its an unwritten rule somewhere by someone I'm sure. Anywho, the nearest bigger town is a city called Watertown and they happened to have 2 big craft stores so I now know I wont suffer withdrawals from lack of supplies :D While browsing, I found a set of 4 ceramic bisque coasters for only $1.99! what a steal right? They also had an assortment of signs and ready to paint ceramic bisque items so be looking for more projects involving ceramic bisque soon! In love with the Magical Kit from The Greeting Farm, there was only one choice for which stamps would don these coasters and here's the lovely lineup:

(TL) Twinkle Bean (TR) Shiny Bean

(BL) Bright Bean (BR) Mystical Bean

With summer practically here, who wouldn't want a lovely set of coasters to keep those cold drinks from making a hot mess on your table? That's why this project is perfect for this week's FFF challenge, Summer Lovin', over at The Greeting Farm! Each of these adorable beans were stamped with memento ink in tuxedo black and colored with copics so yay, no ruined nibs this time around, awesomeness. For some reason, memento ink does not spread when stamped onto ceramic, unlike when I tried stamping with it on the tumbled travertine tiles I've used previously, so I was able to stamp and color almost as I would on plain ol paper. The only problem I came across was with my coloring technique more than the material itself. When I color with copics I usually go from darkest to lightest but I had to adjust and switch to lightest to darkest because when you lay the light on top of the dark it just lifts the darker color rather than blending. This however came in handy when I colored outside the lines, even with the darkest color, E49, I was able to completely erase my mistake with a colorless blender so that was awesome for those of us who still have trouble in that area. I took a few sentiment stamps and a few random small stamps to add a little decoration to the coasters, spritzed with DIY shimmer mist (CAREFULLY so as not to strip the color) sprayed with a few coats of clear acrylic sealer and ta-da! one lovely gift for a good friend, near and dear to my heart! I couldn't resist sending her a picture before mailing them so its not going to be a surprise but she LOVES them! Seriously guys ceramic bisque may be the easiest thing I've stamped/ colored on next to paper and I honestly believe these are my cutest coasters yet. I'm telling you to give it a try you'll get so many compliments and it looks very professional, you'll be hooked! Well, till next time,

-Krys