Recently when I was invited to my friend's house warming party, I knew I could not show up empty handed. The couple already had a fully functioning house with all the staples, but I followed my instincts that they were without a set of personalized place mats. Good thing I did because they were smitten on the place mats and it was a gift that no one else brought them.
SUPPLIES
Ready Made Place Mats
Embroidery Floss
Computer Program (such as Picnic) to covert photos into line drawings
Tulip Fabric Markers
Fabric
Embroidery Needle
Aleene's Tack It Over and Over
Iron On Interfacing
Pen
Carbon Paper
Photographs
Because I can never say no to the random kitschy junk I find at the thrift store I already had some groovy vintage quilted place mats in my stash. I had been saving them for a special day and a house warming for one of my oldest and dearest friends qualified. You can find place mats at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, World Market - or sew your own.
Next I needed to get portraits of the new home owners. I snagged pictures from their Facebook pages and ran them through a Picnic program to make them into line drawings.
Once I had line drawings to follow I traced the basic outline of their faces onto a piece of cotton cloth using carbon paper and a pen.
After my drawing was complete I went back in with Tulip and Crafty Chica Fabric Markers and did a little augmenting.
I needed to attach my fabric to my place mats so I started by using some iron on interface to stiffen my drawing and also set my fabric markers. Then using Aleene's Tack It Over and Over I glued the portraits to the place mats.
I also added a little banner that read "Home is Where Cory is" and "Home is Where Tom is". I used a Sublime Stitching iron on embroidery pattern for the banner.
Once everything was tacked to the placemat I went through and did a bit of embroidery to add a touch of fancy to the place mats and give them a more of a mixed media feel.
The new home owners seemed pleased as punch with their new place mats, hooray!
And can I just say, as the recipient of this gift, that this is HANDS DOWN the coolest gift anyone has every given me! You are so thoughtful Jen, it tugs my heart a little every time I sit down to eat... THANK YOU!!!
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