Natural stone is a beautiful mountain born material that is used in a variety of functional and decorative products. It is often prized in drink coasters for its rugged durability, and ability to absorb liquid from damp glasses. However the journey that the stone takes from creation, to finished product, is actually a fascinating look at the way the natural world combines with human design.

Stone begins its life deep beneath the earth. Here various minerals and materials are mixed together, forced to interact with one another, pressed down on by the constant force of the entire earth. Over time, the stone hardens as the material gets more and more dense.

After millions of years of being subjected to the intense pressure of an entire mountain bearing down on it, some industrious mining company may come along and extract the material from the earth. This is most often done by slowly separating a shelf of stone from the side of a rock face, and then slicing the material down using cutting or explosive agents.

The result is a giant slab of stone, whose surface is made up of the myriad of materials that were present as it formed. This cross section of the mountain is a unique expression of color, texture, and pattern that sweeps across a huge surface of natural stone.

The slab is then usually cut down into smaller and smaller sizes either table top or counter sized slabs, or even smaller tiling and mosaic dimensions. Each piece of this vast puzzle however still retains its own unique expression of the greater picture that appeared in the cross section of the stone, and is thus a one of a kind, unique piece.

Some of these materials will get polished or honed. This process smooths out the surface of the stone, and in the case of polishing, can actually give it a glimmering glinting glow. Some materials such as marble actually get more vibrant, and their patterns become more visible when polished. On the other hand materials such as slate actually get less vibrant when they are honed, with their colors becoming far more subdued after the process.

In the case of coasters, very small pieces of these slabs are cut down into either square or circular designs that usually range from 3-5 inches across. However each of these pieces still retains the unique beauty, its own small piece of the great canvas of the earth.