Princess Belle Coaster

I opened up photoshop so that I could do something a little different as I wanted a wavy circle.  I selected the create polygon tool and created a circle which was 900 x 900 pixels with 25 sides with a corner radius of 95 pixels with 95% star ratio and chose to smooth indents.

I saved my wavy circle as a png file and imported it into creative space.  Once I had done this I selected trace and then deleted the circle image.

I imported all of my images and changed them to grayscale then Jarvis, I wanted to keep the images fairly light for the engraving so that they looked nicer when the engraved product was finished.  

For the font I chose the Chilly Christmas which I got from Creative Fabrica, it's a nice font with a little love heart which I feel was befitting of Princess Belle as she was a character of the Beauty and the beast.

I outlined the images and the font so that the engravings could sit on the cut outlines.  Once everything was positioned I combined all the cut outlines and then sat the images on top of them.

I had originally designed the coaster differently to what I ended up with as the original design didn't work out as planned so this is why I don't have photo's of the process as I forgot to take photo's of when I was cutting and engraving the one I ended up with.

Once the coaster pieces were finished, I sprayed some acrylic over the wood to prepare it for the resin so that the resin doesn't seep through the wood.  I allowed the acrylic to dry for a few hours and then once dry I glued the cutout part to the base and let it set for around four hours.

When it comes to resin you should always wear ppe eg:  nitrile gloves, mask and sometimes goggles dependent upon the resin you are using.  I also add masking tape to the bottom of the coaster to protect it from getting any resin on the bottom.

I put a silicone mat on my bench to protect the bench from getting resin on there also. If you haven't worked with resin before, it gets very messy.

I mixed equal parts of A & B together and once combined properly I added a pink mica powder and then some white mica powder so that I could get it to the colour I was looking for.  I had a pipette ready for the intricate areas of the coaster.

Once I had poured the resin into the coaster I pulled up the amount of resin I needed into the pipette so that I could place it where I needed it I then left it covered for one hour.

Once the hour was up, I wanted to add some little stars whilst the resin was sticky.

When I had finished adding the stars I covered the coaster for 24 hours so that the resin could set.

The next day, I decided I wanted to add some paint to the sides to pretty it up a bit more.

When the paint had dried I then added a top coat of clear resin to finish it off. and allowed that another 24 hours to dry.

I then took the masking tape off and painted glue to the bottom of the coaster and added the cork.

One Tip also when working with resin; to get the bubbles out you can either use heat guns or blue flames but in this case I chose to spray rubbing alcohol instead, considering I was working with wood.

I hope you enjoy making this for a Disney fan in you family.