How to Add Embellishments to Placemats
Placemats provide protection for vulnerable dining table surfaces, and they add texture, style, color, pattern, whimsy or class to a table setting. A placemat can be made of leaves or crafted from the finest silk. Because of its versatility and design options, placemats are a natural way to create mood and theme for a unique dining experience. Premade placemats are also easy to upgrade, embellish and decorate, often at very low cost for a high impact. Iron-on embellishments allow you to bring strong design elements to plain placemats with no sewing skill needed. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Decorative design
- Fabric
- No-sew fusible sheets (2-sided)
- Ironing board
- Iron
- Pen
- Scrap cotton fabric (if working with heat-sensitive accent fabric)
- Placemats
Instructions
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1
Select a decorative design to accent your placemat. When choosing a design, you should feel confident that you will be able to trace the outline on paper and cut it out with scissors.
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2
Choose a contrasting fabric that is compatible with the placemat. For example, a shiny silver liquid metal accent fabric would be an elegant complement to a black fabric placemat. Your accent fabric should not be so thin that it might melt if ironed.
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3
Place the iron-on adhesive on the back side of the accent fabric, then iron over the two layers.
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4
Turn the paper pattern of your design upside down and use a pen to trace the shape onto the paper backing of the iron-on adhesive. You can arrange several shapes fairly close together to maximize your fabric and adhesive.
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5
Cut out the adhesive-backed fabric shapes.
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Place the placemat on the ironing board and position the accent pieces however you please. For example, you might position fleur de lis shapes in each corner. Once you are pleased with the layout, peel off the paper backing and reposition the shape. Iron over the shape until the it is securely fused to the placemat.
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Tips & Warnings
This embellishment allows you to launder the placemats as usual.
If using metallic accent fabric, cover the shape carefully with scrap cotton fabric (to protect the metallic fabric from the iron's heat).
