My parents have a bin of several dozen napkin rings, and whenever the family visits, we each pick out a napkin ring to keep track of our napkin. (My favorites are the carved wooden animals that we got on a trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and a set of beautifully painted paper-maiche birds. The ones I made… not quite so elaborate) This Thanksgiving will be at our house, and sadly we only have 8 napkin rings – and they are two sets of four identical metal rings. Not much help for keep track of whose napkin is whose (as I write this, I realize – does anyone else have this problem? Surely people don’t wash 9 cloth napkins after every single meal, right?)
A few years back I made a set of Christmas-y napkin rings out of cotton fabric, but they were much too soft to function as good napkin rings, so I’ve been pondering what other materials I could use for napkin rings. For this set, I decided to use leather. If you want to make your own set, you’ll need a bunch of thick-ish leather scraps measuring about 6″ by 1.5″ (I got my leather in a remnant bag from Tandy Leather for about $10 several years ago).
To make:
Cut leather scraps in slightly trapezoidal shapes so that the ends can overlap, then drill two small holes through the overlapping leather. With bit of embroidery floss and a tapestry needle, run the floss through the holes a few times, then tie to secure.
I used all different colors, but this would also be cute with a single color or two for a more thematic table.
Ta-da! A set of napkin rings, ready for dinner.
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