Ever since I did an ocean epoxy pour for art in our library, I’ve been itching to play with epoxy again. It’s so fun an satisfying! And the waves just look SO REAL and glossy. Do you remember this?
Well, the other day I was at Hobby Lobby and stumbled on these wooden coasters in the clearance aisle, and thought they would be the perfect thing to do a smaller-scale ocean resin art! I hope this project seems even more approachable, if you’re a newbie at resin or epoxy. It’s the perfect way to dip your toes into playing with epoxy art!
Here’s what you need.
Supplies for Ocean Epoxy Coasters
- Wooden coasters (similar)
- Epoxy (note… this stuff seems EXPENSIVE, but you’re only going to use a tiny bit for this project, and it stores well for future projects!)
- white pigment
- dark blue pigment
- medium blue pigment
- light blue pigment
- rubber gloves
- Disposable plastic cups
- Stir sticks (popsicle sticks work great)
- Heat gun or blow dryer
STEP 1 – Prop up your coasters so the epoxy can drip off
Start out by propping your coasters up off the surface. We just put them on some extra cups and that worked out great!
STEP 2 – Mix up Epoxy and pigments!
If you’re using the same brand of epoxy as we are here, mix equal parts of each bottle into one of your cups. For an epoxy project this small, you need about 3/4 cup of each. Mix well with a stir stick.
Pour some epoxy into 4 more cups. One cup should have the most (about 1/2 cup) and the other two should have less 1/3 cup), and the last one should have even less (1/4 cup or less). Make sure you save back tiny bit in the original cup that you mixed the epoxy in. We’re going to leave that one clear!
In the cup with the most epoxy, add a few (4-5) drops of the darkest pigment and stir. In the next two cups that have about 1/3 cup, and medium blue into one, and light blue/teal into the other. Finally, add white to the last cup. Remember, you should still have the original mixing cup that has a teeny bit of unpigmented epoxy.
Step 3 – Pour Epoxy!
Using the darkest blue cup of epoxy, start drizzling on the epoxy so it ends up covering a little more than half of the coaster. Remember, this doesn’t have to be perfect! The oceans and its waves aren’t perfect either!
Use your stir still to spread the epoxy around the edges too. The coverage won’t be great, but that’s ok.
Next, along the edge of the dark blue, come in with the medium blue! Using your stir stick, drizzle a line of medium blue. Then along that edge, drizzle a thin line of light blue, followed by a thin line of clear, followed by a thin line of white.
STEP 4 – make waves!
Using a blow dryer or heat gun, start blowing the stripe of white toward the blues. You can blow the wave as much or as little as you want! Each one will be different and have it’s own personality!
You can stop there or add another, smaller wave like I did! I love the layered look. Use the exact same technique for the second ocean epoxy wave.
SO FUN right?! I’m eyeing everything in my house now… what else can I can pour epoxy ocean waves on? It’s so pretty!
What do you think? Do you think this is a project that you’ll tackle? Or do you have something else in your house that you want to do an ocean wave epoxy treatment to? The sky is the limit!
~Bethany
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Be sure to check out this other fun coaster project from our archives! What could be cuter than Cactus Coasters!
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Be sure to check out our master list of DIY Handmade Gift Ideas!
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