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Today’s contributor is Tiffany from Making the World Cuter. All posts written by Tiffany for Make It and Love It, can be found here.
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Happy Thanksgiving (tomorrow), my American friends! This is my favorite of all the holidays…and really one of the main reasons is because it means Christmas is almost here! I know, I confuse myself. Haha! Anyway, one of the best parts of planning Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners is planning the tablescape! I love creating little elements that no one else will have, so one of my very favorite projects is to make DIY napkin rings.
DIY Holiday Napkin Ring tutorial
The set I’m sharing today is just too cute with trees attached (that are easily made with a mold). And I love that I was able to make them plaid — my current obsession in decorating!
I have made these for hostess gifts many a time and they have always been well received. I mean, look how cute they are boxed up! I cut some small napkins out of the same fabric for my table setting, like little napkinettes. When I give these, I either include a small napkin like this just to show what they are for those that may be confused, or with a whole set of handmade napkins.
I also like to keep mine boxed up in little boxes like this in my pantry. It’s like opening little gifts whenever I go to set my table for a holiday meal.
This is my table setting for Thanksgiving this year: a chalkboard charger, dinner plate, previously discussed “napkinette”, salad plate, plaid appetizer plate (from Target’s One Spot), napkin and napkin ring. Super cute!
Oh, and in case you’re thinking, “I could use those little trees for other things besides napkin rings!” – of course you can! I like to use them for gift trimmings and if you put a small hole in them with a toothpick you can totally make a whole lot of matching ornaments for practically nothing!
The supply list might look big, but they’re all easily available items…and I’m willing to bet you have at least some of these in your possession right now. Not to mention all of these things can be used over and over again, and make probably hundreds of these napkin rings!
Supplies:
The first thing you will want to do is prepare your mold. The plaster of paris will pop right out of these silicone molds but I just like to prepare it anyway, just in case…and I want to actually use mine again for candy. This one just pops in the dishwasher afterwards so I’m not worried about anything left on it. Just spray with whatever spray you have on hand. You can find molds in literally almost anything you want, so the sky is the limit! I went with trees for Thanksgiving, that I can use on Christmas too, but I also have a set of pumpkin ones for Halloween and other fall dinners.
The next thing you do is prepare your Plaster of Paris. If you don’t know what this is, it’s what you use to repair holes in the wall, you can find it by the painting supplies, usually in hardware stores. You only need a little bit for this project so you can use it for lots of other things, like DIY chalk paint and actually using it for what it’s intended for. :) To mix this, you just do two parts Plaster of Paris to one part water, mix well.
Then you just pour it into your mold. I actually poured a little too much in most of those, the one on the bottom that’s about half way full is perfect. The other ones are fine, they just will take longer to dry and will be thicker. Then you just let them dry. I would say give it a good 12-24 hours before you pop them out. Not going to lie, I got mine out at about 6 and they were okay…just a little damp still. I’m impatient so do what I say, not what I do. Ha ha!
You can also make them a different color besides white. Just add some paint in your choice of color to the plaster of paris until you get it the right hue. See how customizable it can be?
To make the napkin rings cut the tube with a serrated edge knife. You can measure if you don’t feel comfortable eyeballing it, they should be about 3/4′ thick.
Mine are obviously very professionally cut and straight. HA! Good thing I’m covering those things up!
To do that you will need to cut strips out of your desired fabric. I cut mine at about an inch wide. You could also wrap them in ribbon or washi tape. The width doesn’t matter, just as long as you can cover the whole ring with it.
Using the hot glue gun I put a dab inside to hold the fabric in place.
Then I just wrapped until the whole thing was covered.
Once it was all covered I trimmed the fabric and left enough that I could glue a little flap inside like this. Fold it over and glue it down.
Repeat on all of them. I made a set of 8 since that’s how many my table currently seats. Those are cute on their own are they not? I would have stopped there, but I wanted to add a little festive touch to them.
Prepare yourself, it’s about to get tricky! Glue the little molded tree onto the ring. Oh wait, it’s not tricky at all.
Eeek! They’re so cute!
I’ve made a couple different kinds of DIY napkin rings that I shared on my blog years ago. These burlap napkin rings are a favorite set that I still use from time to time, and these felt napkin rings are easy enough that my daughter has made them as gifts for teachers before.
Hope you enjoy!
-Tiffany
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For even more holiday decor ideas, check out some of our favorite tutorials!