Canada Day and July 4th are coming soon. If you're looking for fun ideas to help celebrate then you'll love these patriotic mini pallet drink coasters made with popsicle sticks. It's a great craft project to do with older kids. How cute would these be on a patriotic outdoor tablescape or set on drink tables on your patio for guests to enjoy?

Patriotic Popsicle Stick Drink Coasters

These adorable mini pallet drink coasters are not difficult to make and took about 1 1/2 hours from start to finish. Packaged with a favorite beverage, they would make a great hostess gift too for your Canada Day or 4th of July celebrations.

I didn't reinvent the wheel here as miniature pallet crafts are plentiful on Pinterest. What makes these unique is the patriotic twist. While my drink coasters are decorated for Canada Day, they can easily be adapted to your country's patriotic flag and colors.

Painted to look like Canadian Flags, I incorporated the iconic Canadian maple leaf in four different styles.

A few years ago we scored five boxes of craft sticks at Goodwill for $1. I've barely made a dent in that stash, perhaps a good excuse to make more mini pallet coasters for other occasions too.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to make the miniature pallets, almost all of the DIY projects shared here at Interior Frugalista have step-by-step tutorials so why not get your budget DIY on and subscribe. You can also follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

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What You'll Need To Make Them

Supply List

• 76 Popsicle Craft Sticks (for a set of four coasters)
• Cutting Pliers
• High Temp Hot Glue Gun
• Clear high heat glue sticks
• Holiday red acrylic craft paint
• White acrylic craft paint
• Cricut Maker (or patriotic stencils)
• Stencil Vinyl
• Dark wax
• Exterior Clear Coat

How To Make Mini Pallet Drink Coasters

Let's get started. Fire up your hot glue gun because who has time to assemble these with regular glue. I mean you can but it'll take so much longer waiting for the glue to dry.

Step One

You'll need nineteen popsicle sticks (or narrow craft sticks) per coaster.

Step Two

• Cut just the tips of the popsicle sticks to measure four inches long.
• Use the cut popsicle stick as a template for cutting the remaining popsicle sticks.
• You can use sharp scissors, a retractable craft knife, or cutting pliers (which I found worked the best) to cut the popsicle sticks.
• But did you know there are crafting hand miter cutting tools? They've been added to my wish list!

Step Three

For the base, take twenty-four popsicle sticks and hot glue two together in sets of three for the base of each coaster.

Step Four

Set them upright in groups of three and lay three popsicle sticks on top, two on each end and one in the middle to form the pallets. Just like a real pallet, embrace the imperfections. No need for measuring and being precise, just eyeball it so they are relatively straight.

I found it easier to paint the popsicle sticks at this point before the assembly. For Canadian patriotic colors, you'll need 38 painted holiday red and 38 painted vintage or regular white with acrylic craft paint. You may want to paint a few extra for any potential oops along the way.

You only need one coat of paint per side and the job goes much quicker if you use a blow dryer or heat gun on the lowest setting to help the paint dry faster.

Step Five

• You'll need ten painted popsicle sticks per coaster, this will allow for a slight overhang on each end.
• Place two of one color on each end and six of the opposite color in the middle like a Canadian flag.
• Flip the bases so the three individual popsicle sticks are resting on your work surface.
• Now we're ready to attach the top boards.
• Unlike a real pallet, space the top boards closer together so the graphics we'll be stenciling later are not disjointed.
• As you hot glue the popsicle sticks on the top, line them up on one side to keep them relatively straight.
• Trim the opposite side with the cutting pliers as necessary before moving onto the next row.

Step Six

In the infographic above you'll notice the tops of each coaster are painted solid colors. I changed my mind and decided to make the tops look like a Canadian flag instead (addressed in step five). 

Now that we have the mini pallets assembled, time to add the Canada Day charm.

How To Stencil Canada Day Coasters

First I went into Cricut Design Space and searched for maple leaf images. I found four subscriber graphics that I liked and uploaded them into my project. I resized them to 2.5" W and welded them into one graphic. Here's a screenshot of the graphics in Design Space.

Instead of cutting them on permanent vinyl, I cut them on stencil vinyl. I weeded the positive spaces to turn them into stencils (pictured below).

I used a foam pouncer to stencil the graphics onto the coasters with the same red and white acrylic craft paint. They are stenciled in the opposite color of the mini pallet tops.

Again, you'll notice in the photo below that the tops are all one color. I changed my mind after stenciling the coasters and painted the last two popsicle sticks the opposite color to emulate a Canadian flag.

If you don't have a Cricut or Silhouette machine, you could stencil the centers with readymade stencils or transfer maple leaf graphics with this image transfer technique.

We're not quite done yet.

How To Age The Mini Pallet Drink Coasters

This step is completely optional but if you'd like the coasters to look more like authentic timeworn pallets we're going to give them an aged patina.

To do this dip a wax brush into dark wax and offload some of it onto a paper towel. Lightly swipe the brush across the coasters both inside and out. With an art brush, apply more wax along the edges of the mini pallets.

Allow the wax to cure enough that it's no longer tacky before spraying them with a protective exterior clear coat.

That's it, now we're done!

Here's a close-up of each maple leaf style. With this one, I used a script liner art brush to paint the gaps between the A's, N, and D.

What do you think of this one, eh?

I think this heart design with little tiny maple leaves is my favorite.

And last but not least, this one has a large maple leaf encircled with tiny ones.

For more DIY patriotic decorating ideas, here's a DIY Patriotic Ribbon Wreath that I made with dollar store finds that is easy peasy. To decorate our front steps I painted a Canadian flag on our Adirondack Foot Stool and made a simple sign to hang above it.

Thanks for stopping by the Interior Frugalista today! I hope you were inspired by the mini pallet drink coaster tutorial. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below or the Contact Me tab at the top to drop me an email. I love hearing from you!

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