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How to make DIY fruit coasters
Brighten up your home or office with these summer fruit coasters and our full step-by-step tutorial.
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Making your own personalised, quality products is easy with Xpres Craft. Not only do they have an extensive collection of craft blanks, but they also have plenty of vinyl, accessories and equipment to stock up your craft room. We’re using the Xpres Craft Self Adhesive Vinyl with the Silhouette Cameo for this project – the vinyl comes in 27 different colours, so the hard part will be deciding what to use. Can’t decide? Grab yourself one of the crafting packages from Xpres Craft.
Download your free fruit coasters template from the Xpres Craft website to get started – the templates include shapes for the coasters, but if you prefer to buy readymade coasters to decorate, we’re using these round coasters.
We love seeing what you make, so don’t forget to share your craft projects with us on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, too. Love this project? Let us know in the comments below!
You Will Need
Silhouette Cameo
Buy now: £349
The Silhouette Cameo 4 Cutter is an electronic cutting machine with a cut width of 12″ as well as a built-in roll feeder, making it ideal for any size of vinyl project. It’s also got a handy built-in cross cutter allowing you to cut the vinyl off the roll when the machine has finished, so you’ll cut down on waste, too. The rotary blade allows the Silhouette Cameo to cut through fabrics with ease, while the craft blade can cut materials up to 3mm thick – ideal for leathers and thicker card.
Templates
Download free: Fruit coaster templates
These fruit coaster templates have been designed exclusively for this project, and are yours, free, to download from the Xpres Craft website! Don’t worry if you don’t have a Silhouette machine – simply download the templates, trace onto vinyl and use a pair of scissors (or craft knife) to cut them out.
Blank coasters
Buy now: £1 each
Xpres Craft also has a range of useful craft blanks, including enamel mugs, cushion covers, keyrings, t-shirts, tote bags and water bottles among others. We’re using the round coaster blanks for this project – they have a smooth glossy finish so are ideal for use with vinyl.
Self-adhesive vinyl
Buy now: £0.90 per sheet
The self-adhesive vinyl from Xpres Craft comes in 27 different colours for the gloss finish, and 21 different colours for the matt finish. They’re available as individual sheets, 30.5cm wide by 61cm long, so you’ll get a lot of use out of one sheet – and you only need to buy the colours you’ll use (although there are selection packs available if you’d prefer).
Application tape
Buy now: £18 for 12″ wide, 50m long roll
Application tape is used to transfer cut designs to your craft blank (or coaster in our case). It has a low tack adhesive and securely picks up all the small pieces, keeping them in place, so you don’t need to worry about placing individual pieces with tweezers. Once the design is stuck in place, the application tape peels off cleanly, leaving no residue. It’s a useful piece of kit to have – and this application tape from Xpres Craft comes in whopping 50m rolls.
Weeder
Buy now: £5.10
Once your design is cut, you’ll need to remove the excess pieces of vinyl between your cut pieces – this is where a weeder comes in. It’s not essential when cutting large, blocky designs, but it’s extremely useful when you’re cutting designs with fine detail or skinny lines.
Squeegee
Buy now: £2.16
Use a squeegee to get rid of air bubbles that are caught underneath the vinyl and ensure your vinyl (or sticker) has perfectly adhered to the surface. It has a smooth surface so you can apply pressure as you run the squeegee over your vinyl without it scratching it.
How to make DIY coasters
Step 1
First, gather everything you will need for the project. For this tutorial, we’re making the citrus fruit, so we need yellow vinyl, orange vinyl and a blank coaster. These round coasters from Xpres Craft do the job nicely (and they’re cheap, too!).
Step 2
Next, download our exclusive fruit vector artwork from the Xpres Craft website into your cutter software. If you don’t have an electronic cutting machine – print the templates instead, transfer them onto your vinyl (a lightbox is handy to do this – or just tape to a window and trace) and use scissors to cut out. We’re using Silhouette Studio – the Basic Edition and Mint Edition are available for free online.
Step 3
Feed your vinyl into the cutter and send it to cut. Your Silhouette will do all the hard work for you!
Step 4
Unload the vinyl from the cutter and weed away the excess. Using a weeder tool helps you to pick up the really small pieces of cut vinyl, such as in between the fruit pieces.
Step 5
Once weeded, use the application tape to cover the vinyl. To do this, cut a piece of application tape to size – slightly larger than the cut shapes – peel off, and press down.
Step 6
Use the squeegee to rub over the application tape on top of the vinyl cut fruit shapes. Eliminate any air bubbles and press firmly. The application tape is low tack, with a temporary stick, which acts as a carrier sheet and keeps all the elements in place before transferring to the coasters.
Step 7
Peel away the white backing paper on the application tape.
Step 8
Take a white round coaster and position the vinyl filled application tape centrally onto it. The fruit vector files are sized exactly so they work perfectly with the Xpres Craft coasters.
Step 9
Once your fruit design is in position on the coaster, press down firmly. Rub over the design and application tape with a squeegee. This will fuse the vinyl to the coaster.
Step 10
Finally, carefully peel off the top layer of clear application tape leaving the vinyl behind! If you’ve enjoyed this project – why not try some of the other fruit DIY coaster designs – as well as citrus fruit, we’ve also got watermelon, kiwi, lemon, dragonfruit and grapefruit!
We hoped you enjoyed this DIY coaster project. If you’re looking for more coaster designs – check out these stunning, hardwearing resin coasters, or grab some polymer clay and try these Mediterranean-style terrazzo coasters! Need a refresher on how to use resin or polymer clay? We’ve got you covered with our handy beginner’s guides:
- Beginner’s guide to how to use resin
- Introduction to polymer clay
If you’ve been inspired to try the Silhouette Cameo for yourself, head on over to Xpres Craft website to browse the full range of products.
Authors
Holly is the staff writer at BBC Science Focus, and specialises in astronomy. Before joining the team she was a geoenvironmental consultant and holds an MSc in Geoscience (distinction) from UCL.
