I have no idea why, but I’ve been wanting to do some type of home craft. I found the perfect quick home craft this week – custom tile coasters. They are really simple to make and look awesome.

Two Sets of Custom Made Tile Coasters

Here is the list of supplies that I bought, with prices:

1 package of 9 travertine tiles – $3.97 at Home Depot
1 package small medium duty felt pads – $2.97 at Home Depot
12 pack of ColorPlace foam brushes – $1.50 at Wal-Mart
Mod Podge in Matte, 16 oz – $7.47 at Wal-Mart
Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear Spray Paint in Satin – $2.97 at Wal-Mart
Colorbok Alpha Punch-outs, 1,600 pieces, 10 colors – $5.00 at Wal-Mart
Colorbok Pattern Pack, 50 12″x12″ papers, 25 patterns – $5.00 at Wal-Mart
Home Decor Stencils by Plaid, 26 designs – $2.97 at Wal-Mart

Coaster Supplies

Here are a few other helpful items that you probably have around the house:

trash bag/plastic to cover your work area
a sponge for cleaning the tiles
newspaper for covering spray area outside

First, clear off a table or floor space and cover it with plastic or a trash bag. Next, open your package of tiles and examine them. One of mine was a dud, with really big holes in it, but 8 were fine. Clean the dust off of the tiles with a damp sponge and allow them to dry.

Next, select the paper you would like to use as the background on your tile, and cut a square for each tile. Cut the paper a little smaller than the tile, so you can see a border of tile around the paper. I got one just right and used it as a template for the other paper squares. Also, pick out and punch out the letters you would like to use on top of the background.

Next, lay out the tiles you are going to use on the plastic and using a foam brush, coat them with Mod Podge, just a nice even coating. Next, carefully center the paper on them and lightly press down. After the paper is in place, put another coating of Mod Podge on the paper and let dry.

If you notice any bubbles in the paper, take care of them when the Mod Podge is still very wet, or wait until it dries to get them out. If you touch the Mod Podge when it’s almost dry, your paper will rip and stick to your finger.

Set of Tile Coasters

Next, put another light coating of Mod Podge on and place your letters on top, after you’ve placed the letters, go ahead and coat them in Mod Podge too. Once this coat dries, put on one more for safe measure, being sure to get the sides of the tiles with this final coat.

After the final coat dries, you may have to peel off excess Mod Podge around the edges when you pick the tile up from the plastic.

Next, head out side with newspaper and find a good area to spray paint your tiles. Place the tiles on the paper and give them a coating of the acrylic sealer. You only have to wait 10 minutes between coats, so I put three coats on my tiles.

Felt Feet on Tile Coaster

Last, apply felt feet to the corners of the tiles, and now they are coasters! You can start using them immediately or you can wrap up sets of four to give to family and friends. (this means if you are in my family and friends, you might want to hold off on this project because you might be getting some for Christmas)

I created the second set of coasters using the stencils and a black Sharpie marker. The process is much the same, after washing the tile, you stencil on the tile with the Sharpie marker. After you’ve outlined and filled your shape with the marker, apply one or two coats of Mod Podge. When it dries, apply a  few coats of acrylic sealer and add the felt feet.

Set of Tile Coasters

Do you have some original music you want to sell on iTunes (or amazon MP3, Rhapsody, Napster, etc) ? Do you have friends that have asked you (because, you know, you must be the authority on such things since you have a blog AND an iPhone) how to get their music on iTunes for their fans to buy? Have you ever just wondered how to sell songs on iTunes?

I recently placed a few songs for sale on iTunes for a client, and the process was much different than what I imagined. I would like to share the process so it’s not as shrouded in mystery, it’s really not too complicated once you know a few details. People can be rocking out to your music through an iTunes download in about two days, and you can be seeing money in about 45 days.

First off, there are a few things you will need before starting:

• A song in digital format or on CD (preferably one that people will want to buy)
• A computer with iTunes or Windows Media Player (for ripping/converting your song)
• An internet connection (the faster the better, you’ll be uploading big files)
• Cover art (1600 x 1600 pixels at 300dpi is best)
• A credit/debit card and/or a PayPal account (aka money!)

STEP 1: Find a Distributor

Unfortunately, you can’t just log in to your iTunes account and start selling music – you have to go through a distributor. Most large record labels are distributors, but if you have no label you will want to find a distributor to use. A distributor is the middle man between you and iTunes/other online stores where you want to sell your music. You’ll want to pick a good one, one that doesn’t take a percentage of your sales, provides a UPC code (a barcode, like you would see on a CD case), lets you keep all of the rights to your music, and doesn’t charge exorbitant fees.

I used the most popular and recommended distributor, TuneCore.com. TuneCore doesn’t take any money from your sales, provides a UPC code, doesn’t take any of your rights and offers reasonable pricing. At the time of this posting, distribution for a single starts at $9.99 for distributing to one vendor, and distribution for an album starts at $47.99 for one vendor. (prices are set to go up to $12.99 and $59.99, respectively on August 27th, 2010). The renewal of distribution for an album annually drops to $19.98 after the initial year.

This post will focus on using TuneCore since it is the most widely used online distributor.

STEP 2: Create a TuneCore Account

TuneCore.com

Head over to TuneCore.com and create an account. The process is pretty simple, and there is even a tutorial video on the process. The interface has changed a little since the videos have been made, but you’ll get the idea. Now you can start adding your song and artist information into TuneCore, you will also need your cover art and optional liner notes. The cover art needs to be 1600 x 1600 pixels at 300 dpi to look it’s best. You can also choose which stores you would like to sell you songs. I only chose iTunes US, but you can sell on as many as you like for a small fee per store.

After you have all of this info in, it’s time to rip your songs and make sure they meet these specs:

• .wav file format
• 44.1 khz sample rate
• 16 bit sample size
• stereo

Again, there is a tutorial for the process on this here. You can easily use iTunes or Windows Media Player to accomplish this. After you have the songs in the correct format, you can upload them to TuneCore, this may take a while depending on your Internet connection.

Step 3: Get your Music Distributed

Now you will complete the final step, which means you need to pay TuneCore to distribute your music to the store(s) of your choosing. For example, I paid $29.97 to have three singles distributed to iTunes US. You can pay by credit/debit card or PayPal. After you pay TuneCore, your songs will be delivered to the store in around 30 minutes (though times can vary) after that, it’s up to the store to get your songs on the “shelf”. iTunes currently averages about 48 hours to get a song live on the iTunes store, various stores take different times. You will be able to tell your song is “live” by looking at your song listings on your discography.

Step 4: Get Paid

Stores send out your payments and sales results in one of two ways:

• Within 45 days after the end of each month
• Within 45 days after the end of every three months

iTunes uses the 45 days after the end of each month model. There is no way of knowing how many songs you have sold or how much money you have made until iTunes returns the payment and sales results. You can’t check your stats every day. When you do get a payment placed in your TuneCore account, you can leave it in your account to build, or you can transfer the money elsewhere via PayPal or by having TuneCore mail you a paper check. The fee for the paper check is $2.25 and it’s deducted from the amount withdrawn. A check cannot be mailed unless you have $100 or more in your TuneCore account. The fee to transfer to PayPal is free.

iTunes US gives you 70 cents per song. They get to decide the selling price of your music, but the standard price is usually 99 cents. For a complete list of a majority of questions answered, check out this FAQ.

You may only want to try this process out with one song and see how it goes, but there is a penalty for removing a song before it’s been “live” for six months. Also, auto renew is checked by default, so be sure it is unchecked when you are adding your payment info if you don’t want to be automatically billed annually for distribution of your materials.

Happy selling!