Easy peasy placemats

We've been in our new home just a few months, and I'm sticking to my "no decorating 'til the room is painted" rule pretty well... of course that means I've got to exercise restraint with the rooms that are painted.

That, along with my new, stricter budget means getting creative and spending a little time to achieve the look I want without weekly shopping sprees.

Lucky for me, the Internet is lousy with women like me but with waaaaay more creative.

Fellow bloggers have inspired nearly every aspect of my life from clothing to decor to toys for Ben Ben. Enter Shanty2Chic, a fun, crafty blog run by two inspirational ladies. That, added to our mutual love of burlap and monograms resulted in these fab new place mats.

You can check out the tutorial on Shanty2Chic, but it's really as simple as this:

• Put your kid down for a nap.
• Take a place mat that you already have and go to Joann's. (If you forget, you can just find a place mat in Joann's... you're just going to use it to figure out how much burlap you need.)
• Find the burlap in the home decorating fabrics and pick the shade you like.
• Gasp at how cheap it is. (I think it's like $2.99/yard.)
• Take the burlap and your place mat to the cutting counter and sweetly ask the Joann's cutter lady to help you figure out how much fabric you need. I think I needed only one yard for six place mats.
• If you need it, buy black ribbon (two $1 bin spools) and black fabric paint.
• Get home as quick as you can, because the nap clock is ticking.
• Cut six place mats out of the burlap (they are only one layer thick). They do NOT need to be exact. In fact my place mats were kinda' wonky, but it's OK. Promise.
• Use a hot glue gun to attach the ribbon to the edge of each mat.
• Cut a monogram out of paper. (I printed a really big "L" on regular computer paper and cut it out.)
• THIS IS IMPORTANT: lay something under the burlap before you paint it. It has holes in it, people.
• Put the monogram on the place mat and dabble the fabric paint on it.
• Let it dry.
• Admire until your kid wakes up from his nap.

Here's the finished product one more time: