Upcycled beer mat

As you've probably noticed, I do enjoy taking something you might otherwise throw away and playing around with it. So here is an old cardboard beer mat I aquired which I've made into a coaster for my craft table.

I gave the beer mat a coat of Gesso to completely cover the advert underneath and used a narrow decorating paint brush to give the paint texture and make obvious brush marks. Once dry I sprayed with French Mint spray ink from Oak House Studio and let it run into the brush marks of the Gesso and dabbed some away with paper towel to leave white patches. I then used the Squares Border Stamp to create a frame around the coaster with Cobalt Blue pigment ink embossed with clear powder and wrote some words inside the squares which I coloured in with a white pen. I then cut two hearts out, one from scrap white card and another slightly smaller from a magazine page.  Magazine pages tend to be stronger then newspaper and you still see the text clearly after spraying (so make sure you read what the text says!!!). I sprayed both hearts with a mixture of French Mint and Spode Blue spray inks and because they are different papers the colour 'takes' differently, giving a nice variance. I layered the hearts up and stuck them onto the mat using a glue stick as they are thin paper. Once dry I drew around the heart with a black charcoal pencil and smudged it in to give some depth I stamped the border again onto a white card scrap and wrote inside the squares, cut out each square and stuck them onto the heart. 

Just a bit of fun, but I love the colours and textures. I will spray the mat with a clear varnish so that I can put a hot drink on it without damaging it, didn't do this before the pic as it creates glare. 

Have fun with your projects. Suz xxx