Real Flower Coaster Tutorial | How to Make Resin Flower Coasters, Epoxy Resin Coaster DIY Floral Art

Let's make some flower coasters. I'm mixing my resin together with my hardener. This is KS Resin Liquid Cast. It's a great casting resin for flower projects. And here is the mold that I'll be using. It's just a regular silicone mold off of Amazon. And I have a piece of packing tape that I'm using to clean the inside of the mold so that it can catch any little pieces of lint or hair that's stuck to the inside. I'm only going to be making four coasters at this time, so I'm just cleaning the four coaster molds on the left side. And I've mixed together a lot more resin than I need because I'm going to be pouring on other projects behind the scenes. But per coaster, you only need about 7 ounces total. And if you're going to do three layers like I am, you only need about 2 to 2.5 ounces per layer per coaster. Now I'm gonna pour my first layer into my coaster molds. And this is about 2 to 2.5 ounces per coaster. I'm just eyeballing it and it doesn't have to be exact. The number 2 to 2.5 ounces is just an estimate so that you have a good idea of how much resin you need to mix up in the beginning. And now I'm grabbing my toothpick and I'm moving any bubbles that have formed on the walls. Where the silicone mold bottom meets the side of the silicone and there's a little edge, bubbles also tend to like to form there and get stuck there. So I'm basically coaxing the bubbles away from the silicone walls so that they have a chance to rise up and I can pop them a little bit easier. After I'm finished playing around with the bubbles, I will let the resin sit in the molds for about 15 to 20 minutes. And this way all the bubbles will rise to the surface and you'll see that a lot of the bubbles pop themselves. And any bubbles that are remaining will be at the top of the resin. So I'll be able to go over them with my heat gun and get rid of them very easily. It's been about 15 minutes and you can see all the bubbles that are remaining have accumulated in the center of the coasters and they're also at the very surface so it's very easy for me to pop them now. I'm gonna grab my heat gun and then just do a quick pass over the resin to remove any bubbles that are remaining. You just want to make sure that when you're using your heat gun you don't keep your heat gun on the resin for too long or stay in one spot for too long to avoid overheating the resin and causing a flash cure. Now I'm ready to place my flowers in the resin. These are dried leaves and flowers from my client's wedding bouquet. I've dried them in silica ahead of time. So two things to keep in mind. First, make sure all your flowers are dried before you put them in resin. The second thing is to select your flowers based on the size of the mold. A regular coaster mold is about four inches in diameter and one inch in thickness so you won't be able to fit a very large flower and if your flower is quite large you're going to want to dry it flat or pressed so you can fit it in that one inch thickness size. Filler flowers are usually ideal for coasters and if a flower is too large you can always use petals as well. So there's a variety of ways to utilize flowers in your coasters and you might have to get creative. If your flower is on the thick side and it's sticking out of the mold a little bit that's okay I'll show you how to fix that but you do want to make sure about 90% of your flower is in the mold. Now I'm finished placing my flowers in and I'm gonna go over my resin with a heat gun to pop any bubbles that were created and then I'll let my resin cure overnight. I'm here the next day and I'm mixing my resin together to pour my second layer. My first layer is now cured and is holding down those flowers for me so I'm gonna pour about two ounces per coaster for this layer. After I'm finished pouring my second layer I'm gonna let the resin sit for about 15 minutes so the bubbles have a chance to rise and then go over it with my heat gun. Now I'm adding a few more petals to my two petal coasters and then I'll let the resin cure overnight and come back tomorrow for my last pour. I'm here the next day to pour my third layer. I'm pouring a little over two ounces in each coaster mold and my goal is to pour all the way to the top without overflowing. Now that I've poured my resin I'm grabbing a toothpick and popping any bubbles that I see. This red rose formed a few big bubbles in between the petals in the last layer so I'm using the tip of the toothpick to open those bubbles up and get the air out and that will allow the resin to seep in. After I'm finished popping the bubbles I'll let the resin sit for 15 minutes so that the bubbles can rise to the surface and then I'll go over it with my heat gun and let the resin cure overnight. I'm here the next day and my coaster castings are complete so I'm going to demold all four coasters and then prepare them for a top coat. As I demold my coasters you can see that the edges are a little bit jagged and there are some resin pieces that are hanging off so I'm going to show you how I clean those up before I do a top coat. With the red rose coaster my red rose is sticking out a little bit which is pretty common when you try to put a big flower in a coaster so I'll also show you how to fix that. For any small pieces of resin that are hanging off you should be able to bend it and snap it pretty easily. If you have any overflow or jagged edges that you can't snap off you'll need a blade or an exacto knife to trim the excess off and smooth out that edge. So that's what I'm going to be doing here. For this coaster there is a little bit of overflow as you can see so I'm trimming that excess off and smooth out the edge so the wall and the top edge of the coaster are aligned. So this method works great when you only have a little bit of cleanup to do. If for some reason your coaster is uneven or you have a lot of overflow I recommend using an electric sander on the top of the coaster to even it out a lot quicker. And ideally when things go really really well you don't have any overflow and just little bits that you can bend off and in that case you can go straight into top coating without doing too much extra work. So in the case of this pedal coaster that's what happened where I didn't have any overflow and it just came out of the mold very very clean so for this piece I don't really have to do anything. My last coaster is the most challenging one to clean up and that's because I have a little bit of excess flour sticking out the top. So I'm first going to clean up the edges like I did with all the other coasters and then I'm going to manually shave off the excess flour that's sticking out the top. I'm not going to be able to get it completely flat so I will try to trim off as much as I can and then aim to do two layers of top coats instead of just one for this particular coaster. If you wanted to take an electric sander to a piece that looks like this you definitely can and it will be faster. However because my rose is pretty dark and any dark colored flour emphasizes imperfections like bubbles and little sanded bits of resin that get stuck in bubbles, those things really stand out when you have a darker flour and it's due to the contrast of that dark color against anything that's light colored like a bubble or a sanded bit of resin. So for that reason I don't want to take a sander to this piece because it might cause more trouble than it's worth. And if this happens to you and you're worried about, well how's my flour gonna look if I cut it down? Just imagine that you trimmed the flour with scissors on that area before you placed it in. Just try to visualize that. Most likely that's what it's gonna look like. So if I had planned this better I would have trimmed the rose petal down with scissors before placing this flour into my mold and I could have prevented fixing it later like I have to now. Ideally you don't have to do this and you're able to trim your flour down so it fits into the mold. I know that's not always possible, at least for me this happens quite often so in that case I think this is the best solution. Now I'm finished trimming this coaster and you can see it's not completely flat but it's at an acceptable level where two top coats will be to cover this up. Now that my coasters are ready for top coating, I'm gonna grab four plastic cups and place my coasters on those cups face down. Now I'm gonna apply Elmer's glue to the back of each coaster. I'm applying just a big glob because I want a very thick layer at the back and then I'm gonna take my gloved finger and spread the glue across the back and then take a few dabs of it onto my finger and rub it all around the side. I don't want to apply too much because it will drip to the front. Try to avoid getting any glue on the front entirely. If you do get a little bit of glue on the front, just wipe it off with a wet paper towel. This glue will dry and then protect your back and sides from any resin drips that happen during the top coating process. Some people prefer to use tape so you can always use tape instead if you want. I think Elmer's glue is a better protector and a lot easier to apply than tape and that's why I use Elmer's glue. I'm gonna let this dry overnight and come back tomorrow and work on my top coats. Now that my Elmer's glue is dry, I'm gonna take a wet paper towel and clean off the top of my coasters. I just want to make sure there isn't any glue residue or any other little pieces of lint on the front of my coaster because the top coat will seal it in. You'll also want to make sure that the glue was applied well. If you have any areas where the glue looks splotchy or it was applied too thin, I recommend applying another layer of glue before you get started. And if you have a coaster that looks like this because you shaved off some of the flowers or maybe you even scratched the surface a little bit, the top coating resin will clear it up so don't worry too much about that. Now I'm mixing my top coating resin. This is a lot more resin than will need for the coasters and that's because I'm top coating other pieces while I film this video. For a coaster, you need less than an ounce of resin. I would say for each pair of coasters, you need about one ounce of top coating resin, just to give you an idea of how much you should mix. And make sure you are using a top coating resin, not a casting resin. Top coating resins cure a lot harder than casting resins do, which is pretty important when you're making an object like a coaster or a tray where something's going to sit on top of it. For this top coat, I'm using Mass Epoxy Art Pro, which is a great top coating resin. I normally use KS Resin Liquid Stone Elite for top coats, but I still have some of this resin left over so I'm going to use it for this project. Both are great options for top coating resins and I do use them interchangeably. I mixed my resin for a few minutes and now I'm going to pour a small amount just to get started at the center of each of my coasters. And then I'll use my silicone spatula to spread out the resin across the top of the coaster all the way to the edge, trying to not let it spill over. Also before you get started pouring the resin, I recommend using a leveler to make sure your coasters are level and that way you'll get less drips and you'll have a more even surface. After I finish spreading out my top coating resin, I'm gonna pour a little bit more into each coaster so that they have a domed finish. Throughout this process, I'm trying to minimize dripping the resin to the sides or the back of the coasters as much as possible and that's why I usually do a small initial pour and then top it off at the end. If you do get a little bit of a drip, it's gonna be okay and that's what the Elmer's glue is there for. And now I'll let the top coating resin sit for about 20 minutes so the bubbles can rise to the top. It's been 20 minutes and now I'm gonna pop my bubbles using a torch lighter. It's kind of like a torch but not as strong of a flame and I'm just moving it on the top coating resin very quickly to get all the bubbles out. I normally use a heat gun but because my top coating resin is so full at the top and I don't want it to spill over, I decided to use a torch instead. A torch lighter is a safer and easier alternative to a full-blown torch. You are less likely to burn your resin so I do recommend giving it a try for your top coats. Now I'm gonna let my coasters cure overnight and I just want to give you a side view of what it looks like. And the red rose coaster, I will definitely need one more top coat but the other coasters are looking pretty good so I'm hopeful that only one top coat is good enough. I'm here the following day and my top coats are cured now and the three coasters in the back are looking very good. So I'm gonna put them in a safe spot so I don't get any resin on them accidentally and I'm gonna work on my second top coat for the red rose coaster. And here's what my coaster is looking like. You can see there's a little bit of flower still sticking out and that's why I need to do a second top coat. So I'm gonna mix my top coating resin and pretty much repeat the same process as I did when I first top coated it. You should try to do a thinner layer than you would if it were the first top coat. And if you have a top coat that didn't come out very good, maybe there was a piece of lint stuck in it, you can always do a second top coat or a third top coat or even a fourth one if you need to. And for each additional top coat, you do want to aim to go for a thin layer and use a little bit less resin than you did the first time around. So now that I've poured my resin and spread it out, I'm gonna wait 20 minutes and let the bubbles rise and come back to pop them. It's been 20 minutes and I'm just gonna run my heat gun over this layer very quickly. I'm not too worried about anything spilling over since it's so thin and that's why I used a heat gun this time. And then I'll let this cure overnight. Now my top coats are all cured and my coasters are pretty much finished. So I'm gonna peel off the Elmer's glue and there are a number of ways to do this. Use some kind of tool to create an opening in your Elmer's glue and then from that opening, you should be able to stick your finger in and then rip the glue right off. So for this first coaster, I used a small set of pliers and I just grabbed one of the resin drips. It opened up an area in the Elmer's glue for me when I pulled on the drip. Now my glue has been removed from the coaster and you can see how well it protected the back and the sides from that top coating resin. And take a look at how clean and clear it looks, I'm really happy with it. So I'm gonna continue to remove the glue from all of my other coasters. For the final step, I'm gonna add stoppers to the back of my coasters. These are little rubber stoppers and they already have an adhesive attached to them so all I have to do is position them the right way. And because of the design of these coasters, I'm only gonna put three stoppers on the back of each coaster because I don't want them to show through. So I'm gonna put it behind a flower or a petal just so it's hidden and I'm gonna put them as close to the edge as I can in a triangle formation. If you can manage to put four stoppers and hide them successfully, that's really the best way to do it because four is a little bit more stable. And usually the more evenly spaced out and close to the edge the stoppers are, the more stable the coaster tends to be. Now my coasters are completely finished and ready to use. I'm gonna do a little test with a few cups just to make sure my stoppers are in a good position. Here's what my finished coasters look like. I really hope my client loves them. And I'm gonna place them on my table with a few cups of water just to make sure my stoppers are in a good position. The center of the coaster is gonna take most of the weight of the cup so if you can put some pressure at the center and the coaster doesn't tip over, the stoppers are in a good spot. And you can always move the stoppers if you need to so don't sweat it. And Jasper wanted to say hi before we go. This is Jasper. He's a six-month-old kitten that I'm babysitting and he's completely fascinated by water. Whenever I can't find him, he's usually staring at the washing machine or the toilet bowl and he's so loving. I just wanted to make sure he had a chance to share his love with you guys. So thank you for watching and please let me know in the comments how your coasters turn out. I would love to hear from you and I will see you again soon. Bye!