Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays I love, but one for which I have never done much decorating (sorry for the awkward formal sentence, but I’m incapable of ending a sentence in a preposition). Until I became a blogger….and found myself spray painting pumpkins and sticks?! Now I’m all fired-up and hosing my house down in red and pink! (Not really.) But it is fun to create a few projects with the kids, and having homemade decor around certainly makes my Valentines feel special.
I decided to try and redeem myself after my hideous Christmas Snowflake Placemats, and make a new set using burlap in a simple, attainable shape!
Gather your supplies…burlap (I needed a little more than a half-yard for 4 placemats), large darning needle, and yarn or ribbon of choice.
I decided on a square shape instead of the traditional rectangle, and used a very scientific method of laying my square Greek Islands calendar down and cutting around it. You’ll be fringing the edges about an inch all the way around, so keep that in mind when determining your size.
If you like big messes and lots of fabric hairs all over the place, you’ll love the fringing step. Simply pull out strings until the fringe is at your desired length. One edge of your burlap may have a thick binding, just trim that off before fringing.
Now, this may come as a shocker to those of you who are used to me and my best friend Stitch Witchery, but I actually threaded a needle and did a bit of sewing…of sorts! I took the fattest needle with the largest hole I could find (mine are called Yarn Darners), and threaded a piece of ribbon the length of all four sides of my mat combined. (I went with thin grosgrain instead of yarn, just my personal preference.)
Then I just made a running stitch around the perimeter, trying to keep the spacing consistent. The back has a small knot where the ribbon started and ended. At first I worried that I’d crossed the Crazy Crafter line, but now I love the nubby texture and punch of red they bring to the breakfast table.
Oh, and I finally learned the trick to getting the creases and wrinkles out of burlap….mist with water before running a hot iron over it (worked great to smooth out the fringe too). Wish I’d known that when I made these.
And since I never pass up a chance to set a cute table:
Saturday morning breakfast becomes a little more special with the addition of these placemats and muffin toppers.
Those muffins are totally distracting you from the placemats, aren’t they? I used this Ikea muffin tin and muffin cups…ridiculous how smitten I am with this thing!??!!
(The yellow blob is scrambled eggs, and I only sprinkled them with parsley for photo purposes…certainly not a common occurrence around here!)
Did I redeem myself in the placemat-making department? Are you working on any Valentine’s Day projects, or do you leave it to the saps and bloggers?
And I’m super flattered to be the Feature Friday on Kirsten’s amazing blog, 6th Street Design School today. She put together a great post full of house pics…certainly fun to see them all in one spot! Thanks Kirsten!!! {heart}
