Splash Interiors & Renovations: A Housewarming Gift

Absolutely nothing gets me more excited than a project that is "colourful".

My niece and her boyfriend just moved into their first home together and they've merged their furniture (well it appears mostly it's my nieces but that's a girl for ya) - not an easy task but they're getting settled and housewarming party day was last weekend!

The dilemna is always "what to do" . . . I was just going to bundle up some towels (black, white, grey and a couple of mint green face cloths but I could not find any mint green towels ANYWHERE) . . . and it's the Monday before the party and I'm running out of time . . .

I know . . . napkins and a table runner - easy and fast . . . just need to get inspired - and I truly was with the different coloured chairs in her kitchen (a hand-me-down from her mother (my most-awesome sister)). She's also got a bit of black and white going on in her house but I thought just for a great fun dinner party for six I'd choose six different brightly coloured fabrics (inspiration totally taken from the chair colours). I also didn't want them too feminine because they ARE a couple and he counts too!

Here's what I started with - I purchased .5 metre of each colour and 2M of the striped fabric. There was no pattern. I simply added 1 1/2" larger for the striped fabric (with respect to the napkins). I cut them so that they would end up being 18" square when finished.

Here are the supplies

Only needed to BUY one spool of thread - notice gargantuan scissors!

Check out these really easy instructions on how to mitre a corner at Skip To My Lou!

http://www.skiptomylou.org/2009/04/20/make-your-own-cloth-napkins/
Close-up of the mitred corners for the napkins on this project

Here are the finished product for the napkins

For the Table Runner I sewed all of the left over fabric together to make the top side and I used the stripe for the back adding 5" larger than the coloured fabric and mitered those corners as well (using the same steps as I did with the napkins).

Here are pictures of everything at my nieces - she was kind of jumping up and down when she opened the box she was so happy so it made me really happy too!