sweet november: a pretty place setting

Good evening friends! I apologize for my lackadaisical posting regarding sweet november. I allowed myself to be waylaid by the election, hot weather and a new camera. Oh my goodness! My new camera has me swooning all about the tiny and much cluttered casa. Today's project should have been posted on Sunday but I did not actually do more than visualize it in my head and on paper. This idea came to me late one night back in 2010 a day or so after Thanksgiving and then last year I was too busy to get to it but this year I was prompted to remember it when I crunched, crunched, crunched across the parking lot at work and realized there were acorns everywhere! 

My original idea involved a much plumper acorn and the use of vintage clip-on earrings. Sadly, I no longer have a pretty stash of clip on earrings and so had to make do with what I could discover in one of my many metal drawers of wonders. 

To make the cloth napkins all you need is about a yard of a plain fabric. I picked up a remnant at my local fabric store of a sturdy woven muslin. It is coarser than a soft cotton but not as coarse as canvas. Sturdy and simple, perfect for painting. I am a lazy crafter, I admit it. I am horrible at measuring and making things neat. If I were gifting these, there would definitely be measurements involved. Instead, I folded my fabric in half and ironed it to create a crease for simpler cutting. I cut along the crease creating two long panels of fabric and then measured out along one edge about 16" then cut again to create an almost-square. Using that piece as a template I cut three more so that I could have four napkins. My piece was a remnant so you may be able to get six out of yard, it all depends on how you measure and cut.

Bring your pieces to your sewing machine and stitch all the way around using a short stitch. I would guess that I stitched about half of an inch in from my edges. Make sure to back stitch. This is my lazy way of making sure the fabric does not unravel with use. It will still get a bit ragged but not too much and I don't have to hem the edges (remember, I am an admittedly lazy crafter).

Next, tape off two edges opposite each other. You may wish to measure for an even edge but you can also trim your edges once the paint dries...you will be trimming anyway to remove the thready bits. Paint your exposed edges but do not go over your tape. I used blue painter's tape but you can use masking tape if that is all you have on hand. For the paint I used an all purpose craft paint in happy metallic hues. The paint is a Martha Stewart Brand. Once the paint dries, gently remove the tape and trim all the way around the perimeter of the napkin. To fancy these up a bit more you can paint all four edges, front and back. 

Okay, so to create the napkin rings I collected a handful of acorns from the parking lot at work and set them aside in a container for a few days to see if any little critters had moved in. Next, I gathered up the pretty vintage jewelry bits I could find and grabbed a hot glue gun. While the glue was cooling on the bedazzled acorns, I pulled out a few twisty flower dealios I had recently picked up from Michael's with a coupon and gave them a couple of dabs of metallic paint. 

Each flower dealio had three sections and so I pulled them apart into two sections and twisted them back together, end to end. I plopped a bit of hot glue to the pile of now painted metallic bits and plopped a bedazzled acorn atop that.

 After rolling up the napkins, all you need to do is wrap and twist the napkin holders around the napkins and yer set!  I am so very pleased with the way the napkin holders came out. So pleased! I did a happy dance and giggled to myself  probably a bit more than I should have but I couldn't  help it, don't you love it when an idea looks better than you imagined? 

I hope this encourages you to  rummage around to see what you have on hand to create all sorts of happy homey crafts! 

sweet november: wrap some string around it

My, my, my...the best laid plans, right? I have to be honest and tell you I had time to work on the project I originally had planned today but I frittered that time away. I could blame the heat as it has been anything but fall-like here on the central coast or mayhaps I will blame my brain for skipping out on November and leaping to December. See, last night I tried to go to bed at a decent hour, I'm a bit of sleep monger and generally am not prone to being up late these days but last night it was hot...H O T. Icky hot and my brain began a love affair with ideas for both Christmas and Hanukkah and lest I lose those pretty ideas I had to slip into the living room to write things down and then I decided I was awake, awake, awake and so I put together lunch for the mister, read a few chapters from two library books, perused pinterest, maybe played a game of marble lines and eventually crawled back into bed a smidge before 2am which one could say was really 3am what with the time change and all. 

Before I knew it, mister was heading out the door and  I was awake, awake, awake at 5:45 and so I did the dishes and read another few chapters and distracted myself to hit the Goodwill outlet because  surely I needed a few more supplies for all those nifty ideas I wrote down, right? Not that I found much for those ideas but I did score a pretty and ragged croquet set (sans the balls) for all of $3 and then at he market I discovered carmel flavored vodka and new ideas drifted through the noggin and after a Michael's run, I headed home where I enjoyed a lovely phone call with this lovely lady, ran a load of laundry, remembered to eat lunch and prepped dinner for the evening...and then I noticed the time and the fading light and jumped up all crazy-like to sort through supplies to make my project for the day and that is when I decided that THAT project kinda sucked and so I ditched it and grabbed a handful of trusty embroidery floss and went to work.

When in doubt, wrap some string around it, right? I admit this project is on the close side of ridiculous but truly I am delighted with how it looks. I believe these bits of happy pumpkin would look delightful hanging around yer happy casa for a bit of Autumnal flair, don't you?

I began with about a yard of each color and knotted the whole bit of happy around the base of each stem. After untangling the happy mess I proceeded to wrap one color at a time around it all using the basic friendship bracelet knot. 

 

If your stem is super curvy it may take a bit of wrapping and knotting before the happy mess looks like much of anything. I love the way the floss looks on the stem of the blue ballet. Kinda like a messy web of sorts. 

A yard of each color is probably more than enough, when you get to a point where you want to stop, tie off that bit of floss with another color and trim if you like. I like the wispy bits dangling about.

Happy Day five of sweet november. I hope you enjoyed this bit of ridiculous whimsy! If you like, wander on over to Tara's to see her take on a hostess gift.