Well, after these past five days, I am no closer to feeding myself, but I am damn sure will never have to worry about water rings on any tables I own for the rest of my life.
All because I wasn't happy with the selection of coasters the world had to offer.
Now, for those of you just joining us, I think a little back story might be in order. Otherwise, I'm afraid I might be coming across as a guy who is oddly obsessed with coasters.
So, two weeks ago I made the very adult decision to rescue a slightly used coffee table from the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.
It was a purchase that definitely made sense. It was way cheap and I thought it would be nice to have something to put my comic books or my feet up on while I watch tv. My girlfriend pointed out it would also be nice to have something to eat on instead of trying to balance plates in our laps or squatting on the floor like cave people.
A few days after purchasing the coffee table, I made my self a super yummy meal consisting of mac and cheese, two soft pretzels and a super cold can of Diet Pepsi. It only took me a few seconds to reluctantly admit, eating on a table was a little bit better than sitting on the floor. It was also at that moment I noticed my Diet Pepsi was starting to bead up with water.
Immediately, I freaked. "Coaster. I need to put something under this." Apparently, the curse I was worried about being attached to the coffee table had finally showed it's ugly head. I was suddenly channeling my mom.
I ransacked my apartment like a D.E.A agent going through Snoop Dogg's house. This went on for about ten minutes. Finally, I had to face the facts. I didn't own any coasters. Not a big deal though, right? You can get them at any store, and I just knew I could get some real good nerd influenced ones from somewhere.
The next three days I googled, hunted and asked. It was all for naught. I could really only find one cool set of coasters out there, and they had been home made by some dude in Kentucky. I might have ordered them too, but the shipping was like $5 and that made them a little more than I was willing to spend. I would just go to the store and get some plain old boring ones. Eventually, I would most likely get used to them. Heck, My mom might even think they were neat.
It also occurred to me there was another option. Why didn't I just make my own. I figured it couldn't be to hard, so I spent the next couple days Googling that topic to death. There were a lot of ways to go about making your coasters. Some super easy and cheap. Others were a bit more complicated and on the pricey side. I eventually settled on a plan that fell somewhere in the middle.
Now that I knew how I was going to make them, I had to settle on a what. What theme did I want my coasters to have. I bandied about a few different ideas: Mario Brothers. The Walking Dead. Superheroes. But I went with the show that gets watched the most at my house, I figured it made sense. Plus, the nerd in me thought it was an awesome idea.
My original plan was to just make 3 different trial ones, but I found so many pictures I liked, I ended up making 6. My ego would like me to say my coasters turned out perfect on the first try. I would also like to say I'm an astronaut, but that would also be a lie. In fact, there were 8 previous versions that didn't quite work out. On a few I didn't allow for enough curing time. Others I forgot to make waterproof. And on one, well... its hard to describe what went wrong but trust me, things went way wrong.
It only took a week of total trial and error, but today I am proud to present the fruits of victory. I would love to know what you think. I have a bunch of other sets I am thinking of doing and maybe even selling some. Whenever I come up with a new set, I'll post it here first.
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| My Doctor Who coasters and some Jedi Squirrels |
