13 Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Placemats

Remember a few weeks ago when I showed you how to create a layered Red, White, and Blue Tablescape and gave you a glimpse at those handmade Patriotic Placemats? Well I’m back to show you how those babies were made. And let me tell you they’re ridiculously easy to make.

Since we wanted every piece on the red, white and blue table to shine in their own subtle ways, we opted for plain yet thoughtful placemats. That’s where we came up with solid red and blue backgrounds with bright white meaningful words to represent what Independence Day, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day mean to us.

Oh and today I’m teaming up with my Silhouette Challenge buddies to spit out 34 more Patriotic projects, using our favorite cutting tool, the Silhouette Cameo. So I hope you’ll stick around!!

Let’s dive right in shall we?

Supplies:

• Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover 2x in Apple Red
• Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover 2x in Midnight Blue
• 3M General Purpose Spray Adhesive
• Kilz Primer
• White 12x12 Cardstock
• 1/8” 4’x4’ Masonite (or other thin wood)

Tools:

• Measuring tape
• Tablesaw OR Circular saw 
• Hand Sander
• Silhouette Cameo or X-acto Knife

First, cut the wood to your preferred size:

Typical placemats dimensions run 12 x 18 inches, ours were 14 x 18 inches. We cut a total of six placemats. Don’t worry too much about the rough edges, you’ll catch them in the sanding stage. If you don’t have a tablesaw, you can also use a handsaw + Kreg Rip-Cut.

Then, give them a light sand, being sure to even out those edges:

Give them a quick coat of primer:

Spray paint thin even coats of spraypaint in red and blue:

You’ll notice in our set of six, we made four red and two navy blue (for the heads of the table). 

Next, pick a font, words, and the size you on your placemats. As you can see, we choose “Freedom” and “Remember.” I’ve had a mega crush on cursive fonts lately, and I chose the Signerica Fat font, size: 132. Mostly because it’s pretty, flowy and it connects which made cutting and placing easier. I was able to fit all six words squeezed tightly together on one 12x12 sheet of plain white scrapbook paper. Then, run them through your silhouette.

**Please remember if you change your placemat dimensions from our dimensions above, you may need to adjust your font measurement too.

> Oh and for those without a cutting machine, using an exact-o knife and cutting mat are easily done while watching a few episodes of the New Girl. Otherwise, craft stores sell alphabets which would look equally charming.

After that, adhere the words using your favorite adhesive, our favorite lately is 3M all-purpose spray, since most of our project was completed outdoors anyway. And finally, give the placemats a few quick coats of clear spray paint.

A word of caution: I did notice some minor cracking on one of the placemats (it’s difficult to spot in the shots and hardly noticeable). I chalk this up to not enough prep work/a heavy spray paint trigger finger. It also could have been the masonite, hence why balsa/thin wood may be a better fit (we used the Masonite since we had it on hand from another project). The rest of the placemats are just fine and are holding up nicely.

And that’s it!!

My favorite thing about them is the perfectly patriotic words. It really helps us take a second to remember what the holidays are all about celebrating our freedoms and taking a moment to remember those who have sacrificed.

Itching to see the rest of those tablescapes? I’ve got two versions for the decorative and the simplistic:

 

What words would you choose for your patriotic placemats?

P.S. We were not paid or perked from any of these vendors; we just used our existing tools for these placemats.

As promised, here’s even MORE fun Patriotic Projects from my favorite Silhouette Pals (click the image or links below):

1. Our Rosey Life // 2. My Mom Made That // 3. The Kim Six Fix // 4. Create & Babble // 5. The Frill of Life // 6. My Paper Craze // 7. Kate's Paper Creations // 8. Simply Kelly Designs // 9. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 10. Mama Sonshine // 11. Lil Mrs. Tori // 12. Tried & True // 13. It Happens in a Blink // 14. McCall Manor // 15. The Thinking Closet // 16. unOriginal Mom // 17. Sowdering About // 18. Weekend Craft // 19. The Outlandish Momma // 20. Adventures in All Things Food // 21. Practically Functional // 22. Silhouette School // 23. Please Excuse My Craftermath... // 24. Ginger Snap Craft // 25. Pineapples And Pinecones // 26. Black and White Obsession // 27. TitiCrafty // 28. Architecture of a Mom //

Remember...