Details to Artiste "Thanksgiving/Give Thanks" Blog Hop Napkin Rings

Thanks for coming and checking out how I made the napkin rings.  The first thing I did was cut out the rings on Kraft cardstock at 2".  I was able to five per page.  Once I cut the desired number, I changed to the Flirty background and texture paper (B&T).  I used the Autumn Terracotta leafed side, and cut the same number of napkin rings as before.

Next, I cut the Maple leaf at 3/4" from Ruby cardstock.  I used two per napkin ring.  I can't do anything too simple, so I mirrored the image for half of them.  Once those were cut out, they were sponged with Ruby ink.

The Oak leaves are next.  These leaves were also cut at 3/4" out of Flirty Yellow cardstock (found in the Flirty paper packet).  And then the leaves were doubled sponged.  The first layer was Honey ink, followed by Ruby ink.  To me that gave the leaves a great fall color-changing effect.

One more image to cut... The words "Give Thanks" also comes from page 78!  Cocoa cardstock was cut at 3/4" to fit the face of the napkin ring.  I turned my cut speed down to 2 because the image size was so small and the saying so detailed.  It took a little longer to cut, but the image came out clean.

Final preparation step was to take the Flirty B&T napkin rings and trim off the "arms" of the ring.  I curved them to match the contour of the center. I was left with only the center of the ring (as shown in the picture).

CONFESSION: I just realized that I did stamp on this project.  If you look really closely at the center ring on the left side, you'll see some color past the Flirty paper.  Why this is important is because of the next step -- stamping -- which is optional.  If you skip this part, it's no big deal, your rings will look like the right sample.  I took the large swirly stamp from the Instant Memories (C1466) and stamped it in Ruby ink going out onto the arms from the center of the the ring.  The second side is upside down, but you won't really notice, so don't worry about it.  The Flirty B&T will be covering the center of the ring so I didn't bother masking the center.  Finally (for this optional step), randomly place Bitty Sparkles (Z1263) along the swirls.  I used three per arm (remembering that the arms will overlap when assembled.


Assembly comes next.  I used Bonding Memory glue to adhere the Flirty B&T paper to the center of the Kraft ring.  They should match up perfectly!  Since the rings will be handled, I used the Bonding Memory Glue for the leaves too.  These were kept at the bottom.  And I used that glue for the words that went on top of the leaves.  Done.

A bitty Opaques - Mocha (Z1333) was used as the dot on the "i".  Two final steps remain.  The first is to carefully round the ring so that it becomes round.  I rounded mine in my hands until it was circular.  I had to go back on some rings and add more Bonding Memory glue to keep the Flirty paper down (must have missed those spots).  And finally, adhere the two ends together.  My rings overlapped by 1/2".

Throw a napkin through your ring, and you really done.  :)  Not too bad!