An Easy DIY and Sweet Gift Idea

I came across this photo from Brit&Co’s Instagram page the other day and immediately wanted to throw a springy girls’ brunch.

The colors, the textures, the pom pom back drop…perfection! But I was drawn towards these napkins most because I felt like I could make these beautiful pieces, too.

The tablescape was designed by Cristina from Spatial Dwelling and the napkins are from Cat from ctrlcurate.com and I thought about how versatile they could be as a gift–for a shower, a house warming, or just a little something for a friend.

I learned that the colorful pattern is called “terrazzo” (and there’s a whole world dedicated to it which I also found going down the Etsy rabbit hole. These earrings!!!) and because of it’s natural imperfect geometric design, I knew I’d found my next no-pressure DIY project. Keep reading if you want to see how I made my first terrazzo napkin!

Step 1: Buy cheap cotton napkins

Step 2: Iron out the folds and creases

Step 3: Choose your acrylic paints and brushes

Another plug for this terrazzo DIY if you’re a visual and indecisive person–no need to feel tied to only one or two colors. They all look beautiful together. I would suggest keeping the colors to five or fewer per napkin just so things don’t get too crazy and take up all your “white space”.

Step 4: Lay down some newspaper under your napkin and go!

I tackled this first napkin with just a few things in mind:

1. Space out the colors
2. Mix up the shapes
3. Vary the size of each shape
4. Stop trying to make the shapes “perfect”. Just move on to the next one.

How cute would these be with some glitter or shimmery paint?

A couple takeaways:

*This was a pretty time-consuming DIY. One napkin took me close to an hour start to finish because I went back over some of the shapes to saturate the color.

*The grey on grey was tricky–maybe it was the paint or the shade of the napkin but I recommend not going too monochromatic. Rather, choose colors that will pop! This yellow and sherbert colors were my favorites.

Thanks so much for reading along and to Cristina and Cat for the inspiration here! As always, you can find me over at @cobbleandbrick for more simple adventures!