DIY Laminated Placemats

How does the old song go? "Sometimes you gotta pray just to make it through the day?" Well I totally agree. Prayer and ice cream and the promise of bedtime. My mommy survival kit would not be complete without the hidden stash of chocolate ice cream in the freezer! Who's with me?!  Don't pretend like you don't have one. This is a Mom-blog. Your secrets are safe here, I won't tell your Zumba instructor on you.

Well, it's been one of those weeks over here. In fact last night I collapsed in bed at about 12:30 after running 100 mph all day and realized I had never stopped to eat dinner. I made dinner. I fed my kids dinner. I cleaned up dinner. But somehow I didn't manage to eat any of it. How does that happen? I dragged myself out of bed, opened up the pantry and grabbed the first thing I saw. Oreos and milk for dinner? Don't mind if I do!

Anyway- big news at our house!  We finally bought a kitchen table big enough for our family to sit at! (For years now we've taken turns eating, or we adults end up standing at the kitchen counter to eat. Call me crazy but sometimes it's nice to actually SIT down to a meal.) It's beautiful, and I love it. However the problem is it's beautiful and I LOVE it!  I panic every time the kids sit down because without fail they end up gouging my gorgeous wood table. The first time it happened they were pounding on it with  their silverware chanting "We want food! We want food!"  AHHH! Not cool. I needed to think of a solution and QUICK!

Enter exhibit A) The placemat!

*Note* the table in these pictures is NOT our new table. This is our teeny tiny one. :) What can I say? The lighting is better in the kitchen than in the dining room. 

I didn't want just any run of the mill placemat. I wanted something cute and whimsical that would go with our current crazy color scheme. I also wanted them to be wipeable, because Hi- I have kids. So I went through my fabric stash and used a bunch of scraps I had left over from my pillows and curtains, and then shopped the clearance section at JoAnns for a few coordinating prints.

These could not have been any easier. 

Cut some rectangles, mine are 11 x 17. They're pretty big which works for us but I might go smaller if you don't have a huge table. They don't have to be perfect at this point, you can trim them up later.

 Then, because I wanted to make mine reversible I used some HeatBond and ironed two pieces together.

I trimmed them up and took them to Kinkos where I had them laminated. I went ahead and used the nice heavy laminate because I wanted them to last. It cost about 2 dollars for each place mat. Not shabby considering it has totally saved my kitchen table from the damage caused by my little bunch of crazies. :)

There you have it. 

The perfect combination of whimsy and practical. The girls love that they can flip their mat over and pick which side they want to use. I love that they add such a fun pop of color to our table. And as an added bonus they make post-dinner clean up so easy! The girls love to help me wipe down the placemats before we put them away.