I love making crafty Mother’s Day gifts for my mom and mother-in-law.  Doesn’t every mother love a sweet little something made by her child or grandchild?  I do!  And to me, hand prints capture these fleeting days of little grandchildren who grow so quickly.  Inspired by this post, I decided to make tile coasters.

On my trip to Home Depot, I fell in love with the look of these natural stone tiles, and a nine-pack only cost $3.75.  Worth the upgrade!  Since I went with a natural stone, I chose a matte finish spray.

Supplies:

• Tiles
• Matte finish clear protective spray (or glossy if using glossy tiles)
• Clear vinyl bumpers
• Craft paint (I just used colors I already had on hand)
• Paintbrush or foam brush (not pictured)

First, I used a damp cloth to wipe down all of the tiles individually, since they were dusty from being natural-cut stone.  I then divided them into sets of four based on the stone color, so the lighter ones went in one set and the darker tiles in the other.  The extra ninth tile I decided to make for myself and keep on my bedside table.

Next, I got my paint and brush ready, since getting toddler hand prints is tricky to say the least!  I made the hand prints on the diagonal, mostly because I wanted to be sure my tall 3 1/2 year old’s hand print would fit on the tile!  I also decided to do all nine tiles at the last minute, using blues for my mother-in-law and dark reds for my mom to match their decor.

I used dark blue for my son and light blue for my daughter.  I tried to make two shades of red by mixing in some brown when I did my son’s prints, but it barely made a difference.

The natural stone isn’t as forgiving as glossy would be if you need to wipe off a messy print and do it over.  Paint gets down in the little crevices and holes, as I quickly learned.  I was able to get the best hand prints from my 1 1/2 year old by having her hold her hand up in the air, counting to 3, and then quickly guiding her hand down on to the tile.  Otherwise, we both seemed to overthink it and her hand print would be smeary.

I let these dry overnight, but they should be ready for spraying within a few hours.  I spread out a big box (thanks, Amazon!) in the garage and applied three light coats of the matte finish.  I followed the can’s instructions and waited a few minutes between each application.  I also sprayed the sides of the tiles, since I didn’t want them to have that chalky dust feeling to them.  After letting them dry for two hours, I turned them over and did two light coats on the bottom of the tiles, mostly to give a nice finish to which the vinyl bumpers would stick.

I left these sitting in the garage overnight, since the spray has a 24 hour cure period.  The last step was to add the vinyl bumpers.

Lesson learned that I’m passing along: Do NOT write on the bottom of the tiles before applying the spray.  I used a permanent marker, which looked great at the time.  But hours later, it had bled to the point where I couldn’t make out the year on most of them.  Ugh!  I re-wrote the year underneath after the spray dried.

How cute are these?!

I tied them up with a pretty silver ribbon before putting them in a gift bag.  There may be a few steps involved, but each step is pretty quick, and the finished product is so special!