Custom Place Mats

Featured Pro: Carter Oosterhouse
Category: Home Décor
Time: 4:05


CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I love digging around antique stores, thrift shops, because there are so many cool items that I can repurpose and use for something else.

This time I found some old postcards and some sheet music that I’m going to use to make place mats. Let me show you how.

I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

Now, besides the postcards and the maps, there are numerous items that I collected to make custom place mats. I have these foam sheets, which came in different colors. I have some burlap, and I have some cork as well. I also picked up some regular place mats and some appliques.

Now, this was pretty much the easiest place mat that I made. I just applied an applique, made sure that I pressed it on, put something heavy on it, like a heavy book or something, for about 10 minutes, and that stuck nice and tight, and it looks great.

Now, the next place mat, it’s a little trickier, a little bit more involved. But here I used some cork. I simply traced out some utensils on the back side. I’m applying it to this foam sheet, and you can see how the color bleeds through. And if you want different looks, you can, of course, use a different color, which is a little bit more elegant with the blacks on the back side.

Now, the next place mat is a little bit more rugged, and it’s simply some burlap that I cut to size and I put an applique on the front. Now, you can see the side is frayed. And I simply just pulled one strand at a time until I got the desired length.

Now let’s try to use the laminator with the postcards. Now, with these place mats, we’re going to use the laminator. And, of course, we have the postcards, but I also picked up these old books, these children’s books, and these music sheets. And they’re really cool, vintage, very old.

Now, these postcards are actually from 1908, 1910 and 1912. So they have a really cool old vintage look to them. Most of them are black and white. We’re just going to place them on here like so. And this is really up to you. The process is pretty much the same with all of them. It’s really a personal preference for style.

Put this cardboard sleeve over it. I just want to make sure that no plastic is sticking out. So I’ll just check it one more time, because once it goes through the laminator, well, then it’s there for good.

All right, so now we have everything the way we want it. And make sure you do a couple of trial runs through the laminator before you actually send your final piece through. That way you can practice, just to make sure it’s perfect. And look at that. Voila.

Now let’s try a different style. Go right over the plastic and just send it right through. All right. Look at that. Awesome. That looks so good.

So the next one I’m going to do is the music. And instead of actually using the back side, I’m going to use the front side, which has a lot of art on here. And again, just try to personalize it. Maybe it’s a band or some music that you used to listen to with your parents, and it just makes it that much of a more customized place mat. All right.

And this last one – oh, look how cool that looks. Now, again, we have three unique looks, completely different styles, but again, it’s the same process with the laminator. But you don’t have to stop there. You can use anything around your house. Really personalize it, making custom place mats all to your own.

I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.