How to Create Placemats

Round placemats

Creating unusual place mats to decorate your table is a fun activity for kids on those hot afternoons when it is too muggy to play outside. This project can be fun for adults also and is a way to use some of the fabric scraps and bits and pieces of trim that are stashed. These unusual place mats you create yourself will be conversations starters when your friends observe how pretty your table looks.

Things You'll Need

• Fabric scraps Pieces of trims and braids Scissors Hot glue gun Poster board (white and colors) Clear contact paper Greeting cards or postcards Glue stick Sunday comics Scanned pictures

Instructions

1. Cut place mat sized pieces of poster board in any shape--round, square or what ever else appeals to you. Cut pictures from old greeting cards or magazines. Use a glue stick to glue pictures to the poster board. For reversible place mats, glue pictures to both sides. Cover both sides with clear contact paper, sealing at the edges.

2. Cut rectangular pieces of poster board to the size you desire. Wrap the poster board with the comics pages from the newspaper and glue or tape to hold in place. Cover in clear contact paper, sealing the edges.

3. 

   Cut fabric scraps out in the shape you want for your place mats. Cut two for each placement, so you will have fabric facing out on both sides. Fold under the outside edges and glue together using the hot glue gun. Glue scraps of trim around the outside edges, making each one unique if you prefer. They do not have to match.

4. Cut place mat shapes from poster board and use the glue stick to glue pictures that the kids have drawn and colored to the poster board. Or, use colored pages from old coloring books. Cover with clear contact paper.

5. 

   Scan and print copies of your favorite family photos. Cut the pictures out, leaving a little of the white printer paper around the edges. Glue the scanned pictures to colored poster board cut to whatever shape you desire. Laminate with the clear contact paper.

Tips & Warnings

• All of these designs and ideas can be adapted to whatever materials you have on hand.

• Hot glue guns and the hot glue can burn. It's a tool best used by adults..