Epoxy Coasters

My favorite band is The Birthday Massacre. Think the Bangles, if they sang about nightmares. They are awesome. Anyway, this year, when they came back to Seattle, I got the VIP tickets. This includes some goodies, but mostly it’s about meeting the band. I got the tickets like six months in advance, which gave me six months to make something for them.

Their logo is a bunny. They have somehow usurped the color “violet”, to the point where all of us fans associate anything pinkish or purplish with them. And my logo is hexagons. So what can I make for them. Well, last time they came to town, I got them some Starbucks gift cards. Let’s stick with the beverage theme. I’m going to make coasters. I have some experience with epoxy. Plus I’m rebuilding a boat, which is lots of epoxy and fiberglass. So surely this would be simple.

First, I needed a mold. Unfortunately, I could only find single molds. They weren’t expensive, but getting 6 of them was more money than I wanted to pay, especially for a one off gift. So I got my mold, and I already had some casting epoxy. I got some black dye and a glittery purpley pigment. My idea was swirls. But unfortunately, there was something about the black dye that was heavier than the purple, so it kept sinking to the bottom. The mold is upside, down, so the black was taking over the part that was visible. I tried a few techniques. Nothing seemed to work. I got closest by just not adding much black epoxy.

I had to let them sit for 2 days before removing them from the mold. This meant that it took FOREVER. I can only do one at a time. I had to wait 2 days between them. And I pretty much only did them on the weekends.

In the end, however, I had a few good looking coasters, and a few less than good looking coasters. And a few mistakes that were unusable. Let’s go even further.

Originally, I had intended to scan some of the many autographs I have of the band, digitize them, and then get some stickers made. Someone on a Facebook fan group suggested against that, in case the band had an issue with me stealing their autographs. I totally understand that, so I just found a font I liked. The company that I’d used before for custom vinyl stickers went out of business during Covid, but I found someone on Etsy who was willing to do it for only like $30.

I placed the stickers in the center, then I added a very thin layer of clear epoxy over it, to seal it in. Lastly, I added some felt feet to protect tables or whatever.

The band seemed to like them. Though now I have no idea what to make them next time.