Make some budget-friendly decorations (placemats, napkin rings, a paper garland, and heart-shaped confetti) for a special Valentine's dinner with your loved one, using red, white, and pink, with a dash of gold, as the colors of choice. Add a few beads and candles, and voila! the perfect setting for a romantic dinner-for-two.
Approximate Time: 60 minutes
Supplies:
- three A4-sized pink marbled cardboard sheets
- three A4-sized sheets of red paper
- one sheet of white ordinary printer paper
- pictures of roses
I used four roses cut from an old piece of wallpaper.
- three paper lace tray liners
See http://www.partyatlewis.com/ for a possible supplier.
- clear Contact paper
- quick-drying rich gold spray paint
- pair of standard scissors
- eraser
- pencil
- quick-drying glue
- a few sheets of old newspaper to protect the working area
- heart-shaped cookie cutter
- heart-shaped paper punch
- optional: candles and beads to complete the setting
Instructions:
Placemats:
- Position one of the paper lace tray liners over the long side of a cardboard sheet, so that the lace of the liner will be close to the edge of the cardboard.
- Spray a layer of the rich gold paint over the tray liner. This means that the tray liner serves as a stencil.
- Carefully lift the tray liner (stencil), so as not to disturb the pattern that has been sprayed onto the cardboard.
- Repeat the process on the other long side of the cardboard.
- Do the same with a second cardboard, so that you will have made two placemats.
- Cut out the roses and decide how they will be placed on the placemats, and glue them in place.
- Allow to dry thoroughly.
- Cover the placemats front and back with the clear Contact paper: ~ see: Craft Project: Christmas Coasters for advice on how to do this.
Napkin rings:
To make the napkin rings:
- Cut two pieces size 2.3 inches x 8.2 inches from the third marbled cardboard.
- Place a tray liner on a sheet of newspaper.
- Spray the tray liner with a layer of the rich gold paint and let it dry thoroughly.
- Cut two strips from the tray liner and glue each of these onto one of the 2.3 inches x 8.2 inches cardboard.
- Fold each cardboard into a tube to make a napkin ring and glue together where it overlaps.
Paper garland:
- Place the cookie cutter on a sheet of red paper and trace around the edges.
- Move the cookie cutter to a different position on the paper and trace around the edges again.
- Continue until you have traced as many hearts as possible onto the paper. You should get approximately 12 hearts on a sheet of paper.
- Fill the second sheet of red paper with traced hearts too.
- Cut out all the hearts and erase any pencil marks.
- Use a long tacking stitch on your sewing machine to sew the hearts two-two together to make a garland.
- Once you have sewn over the first set of hearts, continue stitching for 10 stitches, so that you will make a string from the thread, and then sew over the second set of hearts. Stitch 10 stitches again, before adding the third set of hearts, then the fourth set, etc.
- Continue until all the sets of hearts have been added.
- Fold the hearts slightly open to create a three-dimensional effect.
Heart Confetti:
Use the heart-shaped punch to punch red and white hearts from white and red paper.
By Benetta from Pretoria, Gauteng
