made-to-order drink coasters

I've been busy this month with made-to-order etegami coasters.

One customer wanted a specific set of American songbirds, a subject I am not familiar with. Another customer wanted a specific set of flowers that were favorites of her mother in the UK.

Custom orders are time-consuming and materials-consuming, because I always end up rejecting so many completed pieces before I have a set that I am satisfied with and not ashamed to accept payment for.

But work like this forces me to research and compose and paint a lot of subjects I wouldn't ordinarily attempt if left to my own whims. And I do so love to learn new things!

one person's "ewww" is another person's "squee"

How do you feel about crows? I have a friend-since-childhood who loves them so much she squeals with delight every time she sees one, even stopping her car on the highway to beckon to them and feed them and coo at them. They actually seem to trust her and will approach her, even at first meeting.

She made me promise to paint a crow etegami for her birthday this year. I reluctantly agreed, but it took me a long time to get inspired. Before I knew it, her birthday had come and gone. Once the pressure was off, I was suddenly painting crows on everything, including these drink coasters. My friend loves to drink wine, and coasters seemed an appropriate gift for her. But I can't imagine anyone else in the world wanting to rest their wineglass on a crow coaster. What do you think?

coast through the holidays

One of my favorite non-postcard etegami projects is hand-painted etegami drink coasters. You can slip one into an envelope and mail it as an alternative to the traditional holiday greeting card. Or let your party guests take home the coaster that was part of their place setting, as a souvenir of the event.  A set of coasters makes a nice stocking stuffer or hostess gift. You can probably think of waaay more uses for them.

I like to leave my coasters un-coated so I can enjoy the texture of the washi paper. The sumi ink and gansai colors I use won't smear even if the coasters get wet, and they soon dry out anyway. They will, however, stain a bit from dark-colored spills, so when I give them as gifts, I often cover them with clear adhesive film to help them stay pretty longer.

Custom etegami coasters are now listed on my Etsy shop, if you'd like to take a peek.

christmas-y drink coasters

 I hosted an Etegami workshop for expat women at my house three days ago where we used corrugated cardboard to make Christmas cards and New Year cards. Our time was limited, and I wanted to focus on technique and tools for this non-traditional form of etegami, so we skipped a step or two by using images I had prepared in advance and photos that I had cut out from old interior decorating magazines.

Later, when I was sorting the leftover cardboard and images, I saw that none of the nutcracker doll photos had been used. So, while listening to the evening news, I began making holiday drink coasters from the leftover cardboard and images.

I did this the same way I'd taught my students to make cards, except that instead of cutting the cardboard into 4" x 6" postcards, I cut them into squares. I glued the images to the squares, then used a craft cutter to mark out the sections of paper that I wanted to peel off the top layer of the corrugated cardboard.

The point of doing this is to expose the "ribs" of the corrugated cardboard for a 3D effect. This also meant cutting along the edge of the image where it bordered the sections I wanted to peel away, so that the image didn't get peeled off by mistake. I wet the unwanted sections of paper by painting them with a paintbrush soaked in water. When the paper was wet enough, I took tweezers and carefully peeled it off the ribs. If any paper fuzz from the top layer stuck to the rib layer, I used the tweezers to remove it so that it didn't look sloppy.

I left enough of the top layer intact on each coaster to keep it from getting weak and floppy. I thought about adding words and putting my name stamp to each piece like I would do with my original etegami. But the images weren't my handiwork and I was too tired to choose words, so I finished up the project by pressing squares of clear self-adhesive vinyl film onto the surface of each coaster, making the tops, at least, water resistant.

It took only an hour to make 7 coasters. Now I'll have to find 7 people willing to come to our house at the same time so that we can use them. Let me know when you can come over. :)