burlap leaf placemats

Since the Fall Equinox has passed, we are officially in fall. Yay! Now I have absolutely no guilt decorating for fall. Our dining table needs a lot of help. It was a craigslist find, and was supposed to be temporary..that was two years ago. We just can’t seem to find the perfect one. Anyhoo, I made some cute placemats to help make the table a little more..attractive. (I think those faux gourds need some glittering!)

These placemats were a little labor intensive..lots of cutting and painting and gluing..but totally worth it.

Supplies: leaf stencils, burlap, Sharpie pen, Mod Podge or watered down craft glue, foam brush, paints, scissors, hot glue gun

I made stencils of leaf shapes using my Silhouette and some shapes I downloaded from their online store. If you don’t have a cutting machine, there are some cute leaf shapes here. Then I traced the leafs onto the burlap using a Sharpie pen. Each placemat ended up using 20 to 22 leaves, so I made around 85 leaves of different shapes.

In order to keep the burlap from fraying once cut out I used Mod Podge around the edges of all the leaves with a foam brush. It dried clear, and as long as I didn’t make it too thick, it just made the edges of the burlap stiffer, so it would be *less likely* to fray. I used more on the stems, since the size made them more likely to fray and fall off. You could use some watered down craft glue for this step too.

Once the glue dried, I turned on a movie and started cutting out all 85 of the leaves. The maple leaves were the worst. Once done cutting, I used the foam brush again to paint just the edges of the leaves with some fall colors. The best leaves are more than just one color, so have some fun blending.

I used one of the Sparkletots’ placemats as a size guide and arranged the leaves so that they were touching, but there was a lot of open space. I tried to tuck the long stems under other leaves so they weren’t sticking out too much.

Here’s where I get lazy. I originally intended to sew the leaves together in place. But I didn’t have any thread that would blend in and honestly I didn’t want to spend the time doing it.. So I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and used just a dab of glue where each leaf touched. It took all of two minutes for each placemat. I did inadvertently glue the placemat on to the kid’s placemat underneath, but it was easy to peel off. Oh well.

Once I was done, it was time to sit down with a banana cupcake. Yay fall! If I get tired of them I might glue them together and make a table runner for another room.

Oh and if you’re feeling too lazy to make placemats..these ones from Crate and Barrel are super cute!

Linked to: Tatertots and Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Be Different Act Normal, Homemaker in Heels, A Vision to Remember, Along for the Ride, Lolly Jane Boutique, I ♥ Naptime, Under the Table and Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things, At Home With K, Mushki Loves, Tip Junkie, Blue Cricket Design, Designer Garden, Flamingo Toes, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, The Girl Creative, Today’s Creative Blog, Centsational Girl, A Little Tipsy