Personalized Placemats
Your traditional placemats are nice and all, but they really only protect your table. Your plate can still slide all around, depending on which materials are in play. (Basic Ikea plates are great if you’re trying to save a dime, but they don’t stay put on sleek surfaces.
Make your own placemats with some parchment paper, your hot glue gun, and some spray paint (or colored hot glue if your local craft store stocks it). Place your plate onto a generous square of parchment paper, trace around it with a pencil, and then set your plate to the side. Using your hot glue gun, go over the circle you traced, squirting liberal amounts of glue to fill the center in in any design you like.
Once it’s dry and at your desired thickness, carefully peel it off the paper. If you used clear/white glue, coat the placemat with a spray paint of your choice until it’s fully covered. Once it’s dry, you’ll have something like this:
