Urban-Industrial-Chic Placemats diy

Oooooh what says Industrial more than a little spray paint!

I used 18 oz canvas. Great weight for placemats and the painting effect. Cut your mat to your desired size. I used another placemat as a template. Run a straight stitch about a half inch along each side of each of your place mats to control the frayed edge.

Your mats will turn out all the better if you just throw them in a pile and let them wrinkle!

I personally wanted the natural canvas tone border so I taped off each edge with painters tape.

Lightly spray paint each mat. Don't worry about uneven coverage and even go as far as to leave the loose canvas threads on your mat when you spray. These threads, and the wrinkles all add to the character.

Either find a stencil you like, of whatever shape, image or word you like. I didn't care for the size of my fond once I printed......so I tweaked. I used card stock paper for its durability.

Cut your letters out with an xacto/utility blade.

Use painters tape on the back of any floating parts of your letters or image.

Roll over with your second choice of colour, latex or acryllic. Again, less is more, don't worry about even coverage.

Once your mats are all painted and DRY send them through a wash and dry cycle. After the dry cycle you'll really see that nice size frayed edge but it will be a bit of a mess. Trim all of the long thread. They'll need a good steam iron on the back side as well. But now they're ready! The wash a dry cycle gave the mats that great roughened aged and beaten look.