Painting coasters - a step by step tutorial

Good morning all, I have been asked a few times how I paint my coasters and do the crackle background, so here's a bit of a tutorial. I'll do my best to explain the simple steps.

I started with an ordinary pack of coasters 

In this pic you can see 2 that I've painted the background and 2 ready and waiting for the crackle treatment.

After sanding the coasters I painted a few coats of my chosen base colour.  Allowing each coat to dry before applying the next. I usually go for a dark or strong colour for the base.

Once the paint was completely dry, I brushed over a coat of watered down PVA glue. Now this has to start to dry, but not dry out fully, before painting the next colour. A thinner coat provides thinner crackles, but dries faster so you need to get your next paint layer on quickly.

Then I painted over the semi dry pva with my chosen top colour. (Usually I use a light colour, white or cream) Try to do this fairly quickly and dont work the paintbrush over the paint too much.

As this top layer dries you will see the crackles begin to appear, I love this bit its like magic. ( Well they do say small things amuse small minds. lol) 

Here's a pic of the 4 coasters with the backgrounds all painted.

The coasters were then painted using Paint Fusion techniques and products.  

I used Distress inks wiped across the coaster to give a slightly more aged effect and then embossed the edges with gold embossing powder.

Each one then has about 3 to 4 layers of varnish applied, again letting each coat dry before applying the next.

So there you have it!

 Hope that helps with the PVA crackle background.