The DIY Your First Fantasy Football Party Needs

Your party will look great even if your team doesn’t…

Published in

The Relish

6 min readAug 31, 2016

Its a bittersweet time of year. The summer is coming to a close (that’s the bitter part), but football season is starting up (sweet part!). There’s pro football. There’s college football (My personal favorite—going to a Big 10 school will do that to you.) There’s fantasy football. There’s legit something for everyone! Now before you jump in the car to go pickup a pallet of wings from your local Costco, take a look at the materials you need to make our DIY drink coasters and add them to your shopping list. Use them for your own party OR bring them as a gift for that one party host who runs around screaming: “Use a coaster! It didn’t leave a mark did it?!”

The beauty of this project is that you can be super creative with things you have lying around the house or you can head to a craft store and pick up specific pieces to create the theme in each coaster.

The day I tested this out, Michael Phelps had just won his 3,917th gold medal and retired. So in his honor, behold the swim emoji made of clay and encased for all eternity in a resin coaster!

Some ideas for materials to put in the coasters:

clay
textured or printed card stock cut into shapes
beads
jewels
glitter
wire
images and memes printed onto photo paper
freakin’ ANYTHING really!

What you need:

2 Part Clear Coat and Casting Resin
bathroom size paper cups to mix the resin in (you can only use paper!)
popsicle sticks to mix the resin (most resin kits come with a few)
some disposable medicine cups (like the ones that come with cough syrup- most resin kits come with 3 or 4 of these)
silicone coaster mold
materials to create pictures inside the coaster- I used images printed on photo paper, wire, die cut grass and card stock with grass printed on it.

This project does have some down time between resin pours, so give yourself 24 hours before you expect to use them. Let’s do this thing.

Phase 1: Make the Resin Base

Measure out 2 tsp. of part A and 2 tsp. of part B from the resin kit, using two medicine measuring cups. You always use equal parts of this stuff.
Pour both parts into a paper cup, using a popsicle stick to scrape out as much as you can from the measuring cups. Throw the measuring cups away. The only thing they can do now is make an oily weird cloudy filmed mess on anything they touch. I learned this when I used an actual measuring cup from my kitchen. I left it in the sink “to soak” and now have a bunch of dishes covered in a cloudy film, probably forever.
Stir the two parts together for 1- 2 minutes, occasionally tapping the cup on the table to work some of the air bubbles out. Don’t whisk this stuff like you’re a chef with a 2-minute deadline, it will create more bubbles. Once it’s mixed, let it sit on the table for up to 3 minutes, which, according to some tips I read on the interwebs, will help any additional large air bubbles work their way up.
Pour the cup of resin evenly into each of the three coasters in the mold. It doesn’t matter if one has a little more, you’re just creating a base to put the decor on.
Tap the mold on the table to work out any additional air bubbles and set it aside on a flat surface for about 4 hours. If you can put it outside for a bit, great, the heat helps it dry quicker, but it’s not required.

Phase 2: Create Embellishments

While the first layer of resin is drying, create the scenes that you want to include in the coasters. Here are some ideas for you based off what I made. We’ll start with the easiest:

Meme Coasters

Nothing like jump-starting some friendly fantasy football competition! Print some funny memes out on photo paper (or create your own) and cut them down to a size that will fit in the coaster mold without touching the sides.

Goalpost/Football in the Grass Coasters

For this one I used things I had laying around my studio from other projects. I cut grass out of card stock with grass printed on it (because... who WOULDN’T have grass-themed card stock), made a goal post out of cut pieces of black wire and cut out footballs I printed on photo paper. Take a look at the photos below to walk you through the process:

1. Draw a circle, the same size as the coaster, on the card stock. 2. Cut it out. 3 & 4. On the back of the circle, draw a jagged looking grass shape.

5. Cut the grass out of the circle (or cut card stock embellishment grass to fit the rounded bottom of the coaster. 6. Print a small football on photo paper and cut it out (or use stickers!). 7. That’s what the grass and football look like! 8. Cut four pieces of wire to make the goal posts.

Phase 3: Put Embellishments in the Mold

After 4–5 hours, the first layer of resin should be solid but a little tacky. Don’t touch it to find out! It will leave a mark that you’ll be able to see if the embellishments don’t cover it. If it’s not tacky, it’s no big deal, you just may have to arrange the photos with a popsicle stick if they move when you pour the second layer of resin.

Place the embellishments carefully into each mold. Try to get them as close to the desired spot as possible, for two reasons. 1. You don’t want to leave marks on the resin and 2, it may bond with the embellishment and you won’t be able to move it without a scuffle that ends in torn card stock grass.

Phase 4: Lay the Resin Top Coat

This part is the same as Phase 1.

Mix 2 tsp. each of part A and B into medicine cups.
Pour both parts into a paper cup and stir for 1–2 minutes, occasionally tapping the cup on the table. Let it sit for up to 3 minutes to get rid of any additional air bubbles.
Pour the mixture evenly into the three molds. Depending on the materials you used for the image inside, some may require more resin than others. For example, the coaster with the wire needed a little more to cover it than the one with the photo.

4. Using the popsicle stick, rearrange any embellishments that may have moved when you poured the resin. If the resin missed a spot, tilt the mold carefully so it flows to the areas it missed. Don’t tilt it too far that it washes up on the mold, though — this will create an uneven jagged lip around the coaster when it dries.

5. Set it aside on a flat surface and let it dry for at least 24 hours.

6. Pop them out of the mold and they’re ready to use!