There are many places to eat at the Disneyland Resort. Some dine-in, some walk up, some stands. It’s true that there are good and bad places to get food, but the places with the good stuff make our trips that much more fantastic. I found this blank wood coaster set at the craft store and this idea just came along organically. First, I thought of the best restaurant in the whole resort: Carthay Circle. The building is iconic and it’s image is on all sorts of merch in the parks. Then it evolved into all our favorite places that had flowers or flower motifs. Carthay has lillies, Carnation Cafe has carnations, Cafe Orleans has tulips, and Trader Sam’s has hibiscus.
| Supplies List: | Tools List: |
|---|---|
| Wooden Coaster Set | Paper Cutter or Scissors |
| Sharpie with regular and thin tip | Carbon Paper |
| Paint Pens | Pencil and Ruler |
| Colored Pencils | |
| Black Acrylic Paint |
Begin!
I traced my coasters onto a sketchbook to figure out what I wanted to do as a border. This is where I chose the restaurants and decided on the elements (marquee lights, flower arrangements).
I decided a 1cm border would work which left a center square of about 8x8cm or 3×3″.
After finding some pictures of the restaurants on Google, I threw them into Adobe Illustrator and clicked “Image Trace” to get these black and white images. I printed them out and cut them to fit my coasters.
This is the idea for each coaster.
I made sure I liked the placement for each image…
…cut up a piece of carbon paper…
…and traced my images onto the wooden coasters.
Using a sharpie, I filled in the blacks. The sharpie bled a lot more than I thought it would, but I cleaned up any frayed edges with a black paint pen. I initially used the sharpie because of its small tip.
Then I blocked out the flowers and leaves onto the coasters using white acrylic paint.
A flat layer using paint pens was added and I started to create more detail with colored pencils.
The other border elements were finalized…
…and final details added like a brown background here and there to make the flowers pop, and white paint pen for highlights.
Once dry, I painted the edges and back of each coaster with black acrylic paint.
Back to the front, I used a wash of super diluted black paint to darken the border a little.
After a few hours of drying out, I added a thin layer of glossy varnish.
All done!
This was a fun project and I think it turned out really well. I love these restaurants and the memories I have made in them. They’re stylish and a little old-school. I hope you’ve been inspired to create your own featuring your favorite dining locations at the parks.
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