New Year’s Celebrations: Letter Napkin Ties

A fun technique to add to your New Year’s celebration!

Materials

• Paint (we went with metallics)
• Craft toothbrush (one that you won’t use for your teeth!)
• Cardstock (We re-used some old black cards)
• Letter stickers
• Beads
• Twine
• Metal circles (ours I believe were a donation leftover from a wedding, but you could use washers, binder rings etc.)
• Tag punch/ hole punch OR ruler/ scissors/ pencil & hole punch
• Craft tray
• Smock
• Small cardboard box
• Shallow tray
• Tweezers

Directions

• Don your smock.

• Put your paint or paints into a shallow container.

• Put your letter stickers onto your cardstock to make your guest’s initial or initials.  Do several to a page.

• Put your cardstock into your small cardboard box (We saw this tip on The Crafty Crow http://www.thecraftycrow.net/ for a different splatter technique and thought is was a great idea to contain the paint!)

• Dip your toothbrush into your paint.  Angle your brush downward and with your thumb, pull back on the bristles, creating a splatter.  Repeat with another colour and do all of your pages.  Carefully peel off your letter stickers.  You don’t want to leave them on for a long period of time as they might remove a bit of your paper.

• Allow them to dry overnight in your craft tray(s).

• Punch out your tags, using a tag punch or create rectangular shapes with a ruler, pencil and scissors, cutting around your initials.

• We made a loops around our rings (as shown) with twine or cord and added beads and the letter tags, tying them together around a napkin.  Enjoy!

• Once you are done, be sure to put them away in a safe space for next year’s celebration!

Purpose

• Re-imagining items
• Experimenting with different painting techniques
• Recognizing letters

Safety Notes

• Beads, rings etc. can be a choking hazard.  Please keep them out of reach from children 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things in their mouths.
• Exercise care with scissors. Use with adult supervision.
• String, cord etc. can be a strangulation hazard, thus they are not meant for play and should be used with supervision.