I was at Home Depot recently picking up some birch for a backdrop when I wandered the aisles—something I often do. After about 30 minutes I came across linoleum flooring samples and decided to take a few of my favorite finishes home to experiment with. They turned out to be perfect for coasters.
I started tracing shapes and cutting, and soon I had a collection of simple geometric coasters.
Materials: linoleum flooring samples in assorted textures, heavy-duty scissors or a box cutter, pencil, and ruler.
Instructions: Use a pencil and ruler to draw a geometric shape on the linoleum sample, then cut it out. That’s it—quick and easy.
The best part: this project can be done for free if you already have basic tools like a pencil, ruler, and scissors.
Some floor samples are quite thick, so a box cutter may be necessary for those. I managed to cut most samples with heavy-duty scissors; surprisingly, my fabric scissors were the most effective for the thickest pieces.
For shapes, I mainly cut triangles and octagons, but diamonds, pentagons, or even hearts would work well and are just as simple to make.
I considered making heart-shaped coasters too, but I ran out of samples—so I’ll probably go back for more. What other shapes do you think would work well for these coasters?
P.S. Save any leftover scraps to create coordinating DIY woodgrain gift tags.
Photography by Sarah Eddy // Concept and styling by Brittni Mehlhoff