Crafty Girl

So, I aspire to be crafty- I can get lost at Michael's for hours, I love arty things like jewelry making, painting, drawing, crocheting, etc, but lack the funds, patience and real talent to actually make my own anything. But I was determined to do something, and I really wanted to make napkin rings. We use cloth napkins an average of once a week, so napkin rings are really something we'll use.

Three months ago, I embarked on a trip to Michael's, determined to come home with the supplies (and drive) to make a dozen napkin rings. Unfortunately, I was a bad girl and didn't take any "before" pictures, but I do have "after" pictures. First, I'll explain what I did:

I bought a dozen wooden spools, about an inch wide and an inch in diameter. I wrapped them in floral tape (inside and out), and under the floral tape, I placed a silk flower. This took about 2 hours or so to get done. Then the rings sat in my front closet for about two and a half months until today, when I finally went back to Michael's to buy some ribbon to wrap around the outside of the rings. Floral tape needs to be pulled really taut to stick to anything and it really only sticks to itself, and it's super sticky, so I needed to cover it. I bought some 7/8" wide ribbon (apparently Michael's doesn't have regular old 1" wide ribbon) and was originally planning to use a hot glue gun to get it to stick to the rings. However, I was informed by Gina at Michael's that hot glue will make the floral tape melt, so she introduced me to nifty little tools called glue dots. They basically look like the sticky goo pieces used to adhere a new credit card to the paper its sent on, but much stickier.

I was planning to ribbon-line both the inside and outside of the rings, but after lining all of them on the outside, I lined one on the inside and it made the ring a bit smaller so it was harder to pull the napkin through.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of my adorable little rings:

I love how cute they are- my little garden!

If I were going to do it over again, I would do a few things differently. First of all, I would have chosen a smaller, flatter flower, even though these ones are super cute. I would have also skipped the floral covering and just found a different way to adhere the flower. I would have gone straight to the ribbon and saved a step.

But that's for next time...