You are sitting on a balcony in Tuscany, overlooking a lush vineyard. You reach down to pick up your glass and sip the local wine when you notice the rustic coaster under your glass. It is made of stone, with a subtle, rustic design of grapes decorating the corner.

Even if you are sitting in your own home, you'll feel like you're in a Tuscan vineyard when you use these coasters. And best of all, you can easily make a set before the sun sets this evening -- they're that easy and quick.

We have used unsealed marble tiles for this project. You can also use unglazed ceramic or terra cotta tiles -- any tiles that do not have a shiny finish. Find them at a tile store or marble yard. They are sometimes sold in a sheet of nine tiles, which is perfect: use one tile to practice your decoration and with the remaining eight, make two sets of coasters. Keep one for your own use and give the other as a housewarming or bridal shower gift.

Decorating the tiles is foolproof. The grape clusters are nothing more than a group of circles stamped together, and the border and leaves are just as simple. Best of all, if you make a mistake, you can simply use water and a sponge to wipe the tile clean and start over.

There's no need to buy expensive rubber stamps. These are made from erasers. Stamps made from erasers can be as simple as these or as detailed as those you buy, if you've got a good hand with the Xacto knife. Use stamps made from erasers anywhere you would use regular rubber stamps: decorate greeting cards, fabrics, even flowerpots.

What You Need

Four 4-inch marble, stone or terra cotta tiles, unglazed, unsealed
Purple, green and brown acrylic craft paints
2 pencils with unused erasers
Pink school eraser with angled end
X-acto knife
Clear acrylic spray
Four 1 1/2" self adhesive felt circles (used for placing on the feet of furniture)
Clear acrylic spray finish

What to Do

Prepare erasers for use as stamps. One of the round pencil erasers will be used as is to create individual grapes. Use the Xacto knife to cut into the second pencil eraser in the following way to create the leaf stamp: cut down into the eraser through the diameter of the circle about 1/8". Then, cut from the side of the eraser, about 1/8" down until you have removed half of the top of the eraser, leaving a half circle.
Use Xacto knife to cut a thin sliver across one of the thin angled ends of the pink eraser. This will create a flat thin surface. Use the knife to cut several notches into the line, so that when you stamp it, you will get a short row of squares.
Pour a small amount of purple paint on a piece of plastic wrap. Spread the paint out in a thin layer. Stamp the "grape" stamp eraser in the purple paint, and then on a paper towel to remove most of the paint. You want the grapes to be semi-transparent and sheer, not globby. Then stamp a single grape in one corner of a tile. This is the bottom of the grape cluster.
Continue stamping grapes in the same way as above, building a cluster, thinking of an inverted triangle. But to avoid a mechanical look, overlap some grapes slightly and space others slightly unevenly.
Use "leaf" stamp eraser in the same way with green paint to stamp two leaves at the top of the grape cluster.
Use edging stamp and brown paint to create border around edge of tile.
Cut felt circle into 4 quarters. Remove backing from each piece. Turn tile over, and place a felt piece in each corner of the tile.
Repeat steps 3-7 for remaining coasters.
When paint has thoroughly dried, spray a coat or two of clear acrylic finish over the coasters to seal the surface.

Note: To clean, wipe carefully with a damp sponge.