What could possibly be more comforting and peaceful than a nice, hot cup of tea on a cold winter day? As far as I’m concerned, snuggling up under blankets with a good book and some good tea is pretty much the best soothing to the soul on chilly and dark days. Any tea lover also loves tea accessories, and I just love one of my latest creations, these DIY vintage tile coasters.

Our family goes to the beach frequently all year round. In the winter we take walks, fly kites, breathe in the clean salt air, and collect pretty rocks, driftwood and tile fragments.

This year I decided to turn some of our larger and flatter stone and tile finds into something very useful for our home:

Unique coasters with a protective felt backing to avoid scratches and water marks on furniture. And not just any felt, but my beloved boiled wool from felted wool sweaters, making this a zero-cost and eco-friendly project!

Even if you’re not a tea drinker, every home needs a few trivets to use with hot pots and pans, and these are perfect!

I love the rustic look of these coasters and trivets, and have made some sets to give away as well to my tea-loving friends who appreciate unique and environmentally friendly gifts. They don’t cost anything and are ridiculously fast and easy to make.

GET FREE CREATIVE SUPPLIES!
Sign up for the Cucicucicoo Newsletter. You’ll receive an email with a link to click to confirm your subscription. After you click it, you will receive another email with the link and password to the private area with dozens of free downloads, including craft templates, sewing patterns and more!
If you’re already subscribed, click on this link and insert the password. You can find the password in your Newsletter welcome e-mail or at the bottom of any Cucicucicoo Newsletter. If you still cannot find the password, send an e-mail to lisa@cucicucicoo.com from the e-mail address you used to subscribe. Write “Password” in the subject box, and I will send it as soon as I can.

What do you say? Do you have some cool tiles or flat rocks that you’ve found at the beach, or even just a regular tile that you would like to use in a practical way? Grab them and some old sweaters (or even regular store-bought felt), and let’s get started making some handmade tile coasters and trivets!

Materials:

• Flat rocks, bricks or tiles (preferably without sharp broken edges)
• Scraps of wool sweaters
• Fabric scissors*
• Glue gun
• Permanent marker (I used a Sharpie*)

Before you start, make sure you’ve completely machine felted your wool sweaters according to the directions in this post. This is a great project to use up pieces of leftover felt sweaters, too. I prefer using felted sweaters because they are eco-friendly and much thicker and softer than their store-bought counterparts, however feel free to use regular wool or acrylic felt for this project if you don’t feel like felting a sweater.

Try to choose relatively large tiles or rocks that will be wide enough to put a glass or mug on, and that are as flat as possible. I will show you a trick in a moment if yours aren’t totally flat underneath.

Making the coasters and trivets:

1. Place your tile on the felted sweater (or felt) and trace around it with your marker, making sure not to mark the tile itself.

2. Cut just inside the lines (so that the marker isn’t on the cut-out piece). Put the felt on the bottom of the tile and trim the edges so that there are no bits sticking out beyond the tile.

3. Glue the felt to the bottom of the tile, flip it over, and you’re done!

Can’t get much easier than that, right?! Now make a nice teapot full of your favorite brew, and enjoy!

Dealing with less flat stones:

Some rocks might look pretty flat, but aren’t actually when you look closer at them. This bit of vintage tile, for example, wobbled a bit when I’d put a cup on it because the bottom wasn’t perfectly flat, as you can see above.

Don’t worry, there’s a little trick to get around this!

Prepare your main piece of felt as described in steps 1-2 above, but don’t glue it on yet. Figure out which parts of the tile or rock bottom are not as thick and glue strips of felt onto them (as shown on the top) to even them out. Test the tile and make sure that it doesn’t wobble anymore when you put a glass on top of it. When you’re satisfied, glue the main felt piece on (as shown on the bottom).

Now your coaster is perfectly stable and wobble-free! If the extra strips are on the edge, it won’t look quite as nice, but you don’t really notice them with normal use.

Now have fun making a bunch more, and perhaps even some matching trivet/coaster sets!

And don’t forget that coasters are very important even in the summer to protect your furniture from the condensation from glasses of cold drinks! So these make a very useful home accessory all the year round!

Now that you know how to make DIY vintage tile coasters and trivets, make a bunch for you and all your friends!

And if you love using rocks and tiles from the beach, make sure you check out my Rock Crafts board on Pinterest for lots of great creative ideas! My personal favorite are my Tile Dominoes!

Don’t forget to sign up for the Cucicucicoo Newsletter here for access to dozens of free downloads, templates and patterns! The Newsletter is sent out every other week with lots of great ideas and links to a different free sewing pattern every week!

And don’t forget to Pin this tutorial so you won’t forget this easy project!

*All starred links are affiliate links which help fund this blog. When you click, you will not spend anything extra, but I earn a small percentage. I cannot see what you clicked nor which products you have seen. Please read my affiliate link disclosure for more information.