Martha Mondays is here again. This time, the scheduled Martha project was map coasters. If you made this project (or if you haven’t yet, post when you do), post a link to your blog or just leave a comment saying how it went for you.

For this project, I splurged and purchased a Martha Stewart craft knife. This project was very inexpensive I thought. I already had ModPodge and so in addition to the $10 craft knife, I just had to buy some round cork coasters, which were about $1.60.

I used a plastic cutting board to cut on and I printed my maps online. I had some trouble cutting the maps out. Martha says to use the knife to trace around the edge of the coaster. Mine didn’t come out perfectly even and in some places it was still attached to the paper, so I used scissors to cut it and trim it. They weren’t perfectly round. And once I even sliced away some of the cork! I am a menace with craft knife in hand.

Dude Martha assisted on this project. We painted ModPodge on the coaster, placed the map on top and smoothed it out. Then we applied more ModPodge and also did the edges. We left them to dry.

I was really pleased with my results. One coaster has a stray hair from the brush stuck on it, but that’s because I did not buy top of the line Martha brushes.  You can’t really tell my maps were not cut out perfectly. The coasters bowed just a little bit. If I had thicker coasters, that would not have been an issue.  I’m taking these coasters to the family lake house (since I used a map of the lake) and I think they will be a fun thing to have there. This project was easy (if *I* can get good results, it must be easy) and fun. You could do lots of other things other than maps with this. Photos, patterned paper, print outs of famous paintings, all sorts of neat things.

How did this work for you? Did anyone use something other than maps? Can’t wait to see your results!!

I’m putting together a Martha Mondays blogroll that I will post. If you want to be on it, please let me know the name of the blog to list. Once I have the list, we’ll start going through it so everyone can have a turn picking the projects. Look for another post today with the next Martha Mondays project!

Martha Mondays is here again. This time, the scheduled Martha project was map coasters. If you made this project (or if you haven’t yet, post when you do), post a link to your blog or just leave a comment saying how it went for you. For this project, I splurged and purchased a Martha Stewart … Read more →

For Martha Monday on Monday, August 17, let’s make the map coasters on page 42 of August Martha Stewart Living. If you don’t have the magazine, never fear! Here’s what to do.

You need paper maps (and if you don’t have any you could print some online, or use any other decorated or patterned paper you have), cutting mat, round cork coasters, craft knife, foam paintbrush and ModPodge.

Put the map on the cutting board, facedown and cut it out by tracing the coasters with the knife. Brush the ModPodge on one side of the coaster and stick the map onto it. Smooth the map to get rid of bubbles. Put more ModPodge on top of the map and on the sides, brushing it to smooth it out. Let it dry.

That’s it!

And if you’re new to Martha Mondays, anyone can join. Just do the craft, recipe or project on or around the planned date. Post it on your blog and put a link in a comment here. If you don’t have a blog or don’t want to blog it, feel free to just leave a comment here. I’ll post my results on Tuesday. The idea is we will all work on the same project on Martha Monday (if possible – if you want to d0 it earlier or later in the week, that’s perfectly ok) and report our results later in the week. Try to put your results as a comment to my post with my results, so we have them all in one place if possible. Can’t wait to see how everyone likes this one!

For Martha Monday on Monday, August 17, let’s make the map coasters on page 42 of August Martha Stewart Living. If you don’t have the magazine, never fear! Here’s what to do. You need paper maps (and if you don’t have any you could print some online, or use any other decorated or patterned paper … Read more →