Hand Made Stamped Linen Napkins

I got the idea for making hand stamped napkins because I’ve been seeing a lot of fabrics with geometric patterns lately, and everything I’ve been liking has been out of my budget.

Like any good rehabber, that just means a DIY project is on the horizon.

I found this article from Apartment Therapy on how to make the napkins. I got half a yard of linen from the local fabric store. Then I washed the linen to pre-shrink. After that, I got to cutting. The only difference from the tutorial is that I couldn’t get my linen to rip (it was 100% so I don’t know why) so I ended up cutting it and then just fraying the edges myself.

I remembered an article about using fruit and veggie stamps from Parents magazine. I cut a triangle out of a potato and got to working.

I got two colors of fabric paint and mixed them to the grey that I wanted. Then painted it onto the potato for even distribution. A couple of times, I dropped the brush or the potato or moved it around a bit, so there are imperfections. I think that just adds character.

I wanted to play with the patterns and ended up making all of the napkins different.

I think they ended up pretty good, don’t you?

*note: be sure to put something under the fabric you are stamping. You don’t want the paint to bleed through and stain your work surface!