Button Coasters

I just adore these coasters! They are pretty easy to make....that is if you do it the way I did it! Also super cute and functional. They could also make a neat handmade gift. They are also pretty cheap I spent less than 10$ for all the supplies.

You will need:

4 sheets of felt
Lots of 4 whole buttons I think I used 256 total
A sewing neddle that fits through the button holes
Embroidery floss
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Scissors

Step One: So there are two different ways to do this The first way I would only recommend if you do not want to add felt to the bottom of the coaster. Which would end up looking like this.

This is also really cute but I wanted to add felt to make the coaster more absorbent...after all that is the propose of a coaster right, to keep your table clean and dry. Although I think it looks a little cuter without the felt I wanted functional coasters. To start you will want to pick out your buttons and lay them out to form a square. You want to do this to make sure you like the size it will end up being and also if you use assorted colors like I did you will want to make sure you like the order of the colors. Once you like the way it looks you are going to thread your needle and start to weave your buttons together. Do one row at a time.

I decided to do 8 rows of 8 buttons. You will want to continue until you have 8 separate rows of 8 buttons(or whatever size you decide to go with.)

 Step Two:
Once you have all the rows then you can begin to weave all the rows together in the opposite direction.

Continue to weave until you reach the end. The reason this way is so difficult is because the buttons get tangled and it is hard to keep them straight. I also wove the rows a bit to tight so it ended up being a little crooked. This way takes a bit of practice.

Step Three: At this point I added the felt to the back with hot glue...This is before I realized how difficult it was to weave buttons and came up with an easier way. Again I would only recommend doing it this way if you do not want to add felt to the bottom.
The easier way: The second coaster I made I decide to stitch and weave the buttons directly to the felt. This worked out much better. You weave in the same order as above. First do all the rows separately and then start at any corner and weave the opposite way until you reach the end. Once you are done trim the felt as close to the edge of the buttons as possible. You can add a second layer of felt to hide the stitches on the back side. I used hot glue. Adding a second layer of felt will add extra absorbency and a clean and finished look. 

The back should like like this.