This week I've been sailing the Coastermatic ship alone. Tom's spent a well deserved few days exploring the best of Oahu. Since he's away, I thought I'd be nice and pick out a few photos he could turn into a set.

So, if I was @tomharman, and I wanted to create a set to remember this holiday, I'd use these 4 photos. I think having a reminder of tropical paradise on the table once winter rolls around would be a really good thing.

View from the Treehouse - Northshore

Ineffective signage - Waikiki

Honu & Hannah - North Shore

The Royal Hawaiian - Waikiki

Have you been on an amazing trip this summer?
Make a set of coasters to remind you of the good times!

Written by Tash Wong

We're big fans of USPS Priority Mail here at Coastermatic. Their flat rate boxes have made our lives much easier when it comes to getting coasters across the world. Since our coasters are manufactured and printed in the USA, it only seems right to support our postal system too. And we like the redesign!

Two big things rolled out in the new Coastermatic.com last month, both of which involve USPS.

1. We added a shopping cart!

In the previous edition of Coastermatic, we could only do 1 set of coasters at a time, so shipping was fairly simple - 1 small USPS flat rate box. Now, however, we can send you MORE coasters. We've decided to stick with using the priority mail flat rate boxes, which means that our shipping rates now look like this:

Buying more than 12 sets? You are amazing! If you're in the USA we'll ship to you for free! Everywhere else, get in touch with us and we'll figure out the best way to get your coasters to you. 

2. Shipment tracking numbers! We can send them!

Now, whenever you place an order, you'll get a USPS tracking number in your shipment confirmation email. This was a heavily requested feature, and we're really happy that we've rolled it out. It might take a couple of days for the link to activate, as the labels are made before the coasters, but once they're sent to the post office you'll be able to see them coming!

Unfortunately, for our international customers, USPS only provides tracking within the USA. We working on alternative shipping options, but the weight of the coasters makes this a little pricey.

What are you up to now? I think you should probably test our our new shipping system, and start your set.

Written by Tash Wong

For a while now, people have been asking us about the set featured on Coastermatic.com, and whether they can have it too. And now, the answer is yes, yes you can.

Back in the early days, Tom and I put together this set to celebrate the view from the park we'd visit on breaks from school work. These images of the Manhattan skyline were taken on a brisk April morning from East River State Park, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. At the time, Tom and I both lived a few blocks away and had taken to having Coastermatic + grad school cram sessions at my dining room table.

Fast forward 15 months or so, and we now use this set every day. Since Coasterica has relocated to more tropical climes, this set reminds us of where we came from, and how far away we are from the big city.

We like this set a lot, and figure it's probably not fair to keep it all to ourselves. We're testing out a new feature that lets us sell pre-designed sets along side our standard custom option, so now, you can have this set too.

Need some Brooklyn love on your table top too? Order your Manhattan From Brooklyn set here.

Written by Tash Wong

Ever wonder about the history of coasters? Everything comes from somewhere, and our Coastermatic coaster roots can be found in the humble beermat.

Photo Credit: Tr1xx

You'll find beermats in pretty much every bar you visit. They're used to protect table surfaces and to absorb the beer that gets slopped all over the place. The first cardboard beermats were introduced in 1880, by Friedrich Horn a German printing company, with wood pulp mats appearing on the scene in 1892. Wood pulp is what beer mats are made from today.

Quickly after their invention, breweries and advertisers began to use them as an easy way to communicate directly with consumers. Not surprisingly, this continues today, making beermat advertising one of the oldest forms of advertising, up there with the billboard and the poster.

Here at Coastermatic, we're working to start a new branch of coaster lineage. Our attention is focused at home, not on ads or in bars. We believe the things we own and keep close to us should be more expressive of who we are. We built Coastermatic with this in mind and to help you make your favorite spaces a little more unique, by putting your stories on the table. Literally.

What story will your coasters tell? Think about it, then start your set.

Historical references: Wikipedia and Coaster Factory

Written by Tash Wong

It's been a little while since we updated you with the comings and goings here at Coasterica (Coastermatic HQ). Since wrapping up grad school and moving to beautiful Lanikai, we've been hard at work making all the improvements to Coastermatic.com that we've been dreaming of since last summer.

We've got a whole new website and blog!  

After some research and deliberation, we decided to integrate with Shopify. This gives us a bunch of handy new features, like this blog, but the most exciting is a new shopping cart backed with all of the security and support the team at Shopify provides. 

The new cart means you can now can create as many coaster sets as you like, and order as many as your heart desires - all in one sitting. This definitely beats the old version of the site, where we could only handle a single set at a time. Thanks to everyone who let us know this feature was on their wish list!

We've also taken some time to spruce up our home page and the way you pick your coaster images. Coastermatic.com now opens up with a nice big photo of one of our favorite sets here in Coasterica (Coastermatic HQ), links to some of the press that have been nice enough to write about us, AND features some amazing photos of #coastermatic sets from Instagram.

Last but not least is our image selection page. The UI nerds in us decided it was time simplify. We moved the selection tray to the top of the page and combined it with our frame cropping feature. So, instead of going to a whole new page to crop out frames, you can do it with one easy click. The new layout makes selecting coasters easier on the eye for our mobile visitors too.

Feel like giving the new site a spin? Go on and start your set! 

Written by Tash Wong