DIY Epoxy Bottle Cap Coasters

This is a project idea that I stumbled across on the internet some time ago and decided to finally give it a shot! I made these as a Christmas present; they work great for gifts.

Necessary supplies shown here. I got the epoxy resin at Home Depot for about $25, and the plastic bowls that served as my mold from Walmart at just $0.88 for a 4 pack

-For the lubricant, I tested Vaseline, olive oil, and a control (no lubricant used in the mold). The Vaseline made it the easiest to get the coaster out, but gave a rough finish on the bottom. The olive oil generally worked well, but you want to spread it as thin as possible, because if it mixes with the epoxy, it will give the final result a milky appearance in spots. If you are not worried about the possibility of cracking the mold, the control actually worked very well too; you just may need to wedge a sharp object between the mold and coaster to get them unstuck.

Step 1: Measure the resin out as ACCURATELY as possible to the ratio recommended in the instructions for your epoxy (most likely 1:1).

-Not mixing it well or having an inaccurate ratio can cause some parts of the coaster to be sticky after drying.

Step 2. Pour the resin and activator into a single container to mix them. Try to prevent too many bubbles.

-If you’re not very good at stirring and create a lot of bubbles (like me), you’ll just need to blow them out after the epoxy has been poured into the mold.

Step 3: Add your lubricant to the mold. You’ll want to spread it as thin as possible.

Step 4: Put the bottle caps in upside down.

-If your mold is flat on the bottom, you can simply use that as the top of the coaster. If your mold has a curved surface (like mine), you will need to flip them over after pouring the resin in so that the top of your coaster will be flat. You flip them over to minimize bubbles underneath the bottle caps, which can cause them to float up.

Step 5: Pour in the epoxy until it is just over the top of the bottle caps

Step 6: If your mold is not flat, while wearing gloves quickly flip the bottlecaps over so that they are facing up. Rotate the bottle caps now if you want them in a certain orientation.

-If you are flipping and used olive oil (or something similar), be particularly careful here to not scrape the edges too much when flipping, so as to try to minimize the chances of mixing the epoxy with the olive oil.

Step 7: If you have a lot of bubbles, get rid of the bubbles using a hair dryer or a straw.

-I found blowing through a straw to be very effective; just be careful not to drip water from your breath onto the epoxy.

Step 8: After 24 hours (or however long your instructions say before it is safe to handle), remove the coaster from the mold.

-If it gets stuck, try wedging a thin sharp object (like a utility knife) between the coaster and the mold.

Step 9: And you have a coaster! If any edges are sharp, sand them down a bit using fine sandpaper, like 220 grit.

Some air bubbles under the bottle caps

Enjoy your new coaster!