Dinner Party & DIY Striped Napkins

I completely forgot to post on Friday. But I have an excuse… my Mom and I spent the day together shopping and who has time for blogging with that on the calendar? We had a wonderful time together but now I’m back!

On Saturday we had a little dinner party here at our house. It was very simple decor and I thought I would share it with you along with a DIY.

Doesn’t everything look better on my new table? I just can’t stop talking about it, can I?

As I said, the decor was simple. I made these little flags using white paper, washi tape, and wooden skewers. Just cut the paper, curl it a little and tape it to the skewer. Easy peasy.

You could also write something on the flags if you want but I decided to leave mine blank.

For each place setting, I made a striped napkin, a tag, and a friendship bracelet. Since this was a party for friends I thought it would be fun to have friendship bracelets :) I didn’t have time to make cool friendship bracelets so I just braided them. I still think they look cute. And even better, everyone put them on and wore them throughout the party :)

For the tag I hand wrote each one and added a bit of washi tape. On the back I wrote a little note to each person, thanking them for coming and for being my friend (see, it corresponds with the bracelets, get it?).

And now onto a tutorial for the napkin… I got in my head that I wanted striped napkins. Surprisingly, I don’t even have 10 napkins that match so I needed to create my own. I have been really into this neon yellow/green color for a while now and I just had to use it! So first I cut all of the napkins to the size I wanted. I cut them at 17″ square.

Next, I laid a long piece of white paper from a roll onto my table and placed the napkins on it. Using my paint and a brush, I haphazardly painted diagonal stripes on them. I didn’t wanted the stripes to be perfect. If you do, tape off sections using painters tape and then you will have perfectly straight lines.

Just to let you know, I used craft paint but I’m sure fabric paint would be even better. I figured that when I get paint on my clothes and wash them it won’t come out so it probably wouldn’t come out of this fabric either. And I was right, it worked :)

After I let them dry overnight, I ironed them and then started sewing the edges. I used a tutorial for sewing the edges that I found here. It was a good tutorial so I won’t repeat it :) I used the square edged version because it was easier. Ya, that’s how I roll.

Pretty simple little party. But I think the napkins make the table. It just wouldn’t have had any pizazz without those bright, striped napkins. I’m also thinking how cute it would be to make some with a large houndstooth print or something equally as graphic. Hmm… I might have to make a second set and have another party :)