Hello!

The last two posts I’ve showed you some of the craft I did for our recent delayed Christmas in July party.   Today I wanted to show you some more table decorations – this time Santa napkin rings!

This idea came about when we were in a Christmas shop looking for Christmas crackers for our party.  I was looking at a Santa belt decoration and thought that it would make a great napkin ring.  I then went home and pulled out my punches to see whether I could come up with something similar.

The starting point was trying to figure out how to make the belt.   I tried my square punches and the decorative label punch but they weren’t quite right.  I then hit on the petite curly label and the curly label punch and they were perfect (all punches are by Stampin’ Up!).

A little while ago I showed you how to make a frame with a scallop punch and circle punch.   I used the same technique here to make Santa’s belt.   First, punch the petite curly label punch …

… and then punch around it with the curly label punch:

And hey presto – Santa’s belt buckle made out of glittery glimmer paper!

I then had to figure out how to make Santa’s shirt and belt.   I started out with a napkin and my pile of Riding Hood Red offcuts to see what width of red looked right with the buckle in the middle.    I ended up with a red piece 7.5cm wide and 21cm long.   After a bit of fiddling around trying to work out whether to thread the black through the belt or not, I decided it would look best (and be easier!!) to just stick the buckle over the top of the belt.  So the black strip for the belt needed to be slightly narrower than the buckle, which worked out to be 2.5cm wide and 21 cm long.

I then centred the black strip and stuck it down:

I then folded a napkin into thirds and wrapped the card around so it was just slightly loose and stuck it down.   I used both sticky strip and snail adhesive to make sure it stayed stuck!

I stuck the buckle over the belt and “ta da” – a Santa napkin ring!  They looked very cute all lined up together.

I think something like this could also work as a belly band on a gift card holder or gift box as well.  Perhaps just the black belt and buckle wrapped around a red box/card?

I must say I’d never thought of making a napkin ring out of card stock before! Funny how inspiration strikes in the strangest places.  I’m now starting to think about ribbons, flowers, brads … I need to throw some more dinner parties to come up with new decorating ideas!

Thanks for reading.

Caro