personalized place mats

My living room table used to be in pretty poor shape and was in need of a make over but since we were still living in an apartment it was difficult for me to start fixing up the table in our living room. Now that we've moved I've stripped the table and re-varnished it, it looks so much cleaner now. Before fixing up the table I knew that once it was fixed I'd want to protect the table while we'd be eating so I decided to go for place mats....but there aren't any cute place mats out there!!!

So make your own I thought:)

I bought a bunch of really cheap 1 euro a piece bamboo place mats and got to work.

 First I put a coat of white craft paint over the entire surface of the mat (just the front side).

 Then I used my silhouette to cut out the stencil I wanted.

 I was going for a shabby chic look so I filled the stencil in with light gray paint. Later I went back and added a small stencil on the bottom right hand corner because of course I noticed that the plate would completely cover my first pretty stencil....

 I also got a new table cloth which I think adds a lot and makes it look romantic. the side board in the back of the picture was repainted a couple weeks ago, it used to be a muggy brownish color before.

 I love my new place mats, oh I did add a coat of clear varnish just to seal the whole thing. you can wipe these down pretty well but I made the mistake to serve curry once and my son spilled half his curry on the place mat....curry does not come off these mats, I ended up rubbing so hard I took off the paint:(

 This was a fun project, I love having personalized place mats, the 2005 in the right hand corner is the year we got married by the way:)