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Hi, I'm Gloria Kenyon, Public Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.
Today's Handi-hour craft is tile making.
These are just basic four by four white tiles you can get at any hardware store.
These have a glaze on them and you're going to want one with a glaze for the project that we're going to do
so it works properly. You can do a couple different things.
I'm going to show you how to do one with regular Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol.
You can also just use regular paint pens and draw on them, write on them, and then bake them and that seals them.
The one we're going to do actually uses
Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol, and then you seal it off.
I'll show you how to do this basic technique. It is really simple, really fun.
You can get a variety of different patterns depending on how much rubbing alcohol you use.
Let's get started.
You just take your regular tile.
Seriously, any colors you want - I like blues and greens and a little bit of pink for contrast.
Then you just color on the tile.
Any pattern, if you want to get super fancy you can.
I like the way a kind of messier pattern looks.
I think it comes out a little more fun and a little more interesting.
I'm just going to take some basic rubbing alcohol.
You can use a dropper and drop it on. I'm actually just going to use a paintbrush and sprinkle it on.
I'm just going to pour a little bit in the cap because you don't need a lot, and now I'm just going to splash it on there.
You can see, it starts to change color pretty quickly especially on the pink.
Just splash, splash, splash, you can do a little bit more gentle.
Make sure you're doing this on a surface that you don't mind getting rubbing alcohol on.
If you want to turn it a little bit you can get the colors to mix in different ways.
It kind of bleeds into each other.
The more rubbing alcohol you use the more dramatic it's going to be.
Once you get it how you want it,
we're going to turn it a little bit more,
set it aside to dry. It takes about a full hour or more for it to completely dry.
Once it's dry, you need to seal it otherwise once you use your coaster, it'll completely
run everywhere when you get any moisture on it. I'm just going to use some Mod Podge.
You can also use a spray adhesive if you want. That works really well and really quickly.
With the Mod Podge you want to be careful because
the brush on the marker can smear it a little bit, so you want to do this really really gently.
I'm just going to dip it in
and get a lot on so I can just really gently
brush it over and try to touch it as little as possible.
Just really light, because we just want to seal it up,
but we don't want to smear any of our color.
Now, it's coated in Mod Podge, and we just let it dry and when it's done you'll get a similar look to this.
It's just completely dry and sealed and ready for you to use.