Nautical Garden Party: Cocktail Napkin Banner

Happy Monday! I am in shock that we will be celebrating the Fourth of July this week. With our children just finishing up school, it came so quickly. This weekend I put together a nautical inspired garden party. I though it would be fun inspiration for the 4th. I also created a crazy, simple cocktail napkin banner. I am not sure why I haven’t thought of this before. It’s inexpensive simple and oh so fun. The possibilities are endless. Happy to share with you, my 12 Months of Martha nautical garden party.   This is one of those things where I can’t believe I haven’t thought to do this before. I am sort of a cocktail napkin hoarder. So many stores carry them and I can’t resist. Well I decided to embellish a few with my favorite Martha Stewart Paints. I used a couple of stencils and some ready made striped cocktail napkins, too. This literally took one minute. I used the nautical stencils and habanero & wild blueberry    paint. Just be sure the fold of the napkin is at the top. Because of the weight of cocktail napkins, the paint looks a bit textured when you use it. Even better for coral. It’s exactly how it looks in real life! After they dried, I simply draped them over a piece of twine. I used a piece of double sided tape to close the napkin after it was hanging. That was just to prevent it from blowing off in the breeze. Done and done! I already had the fabric from last year’s Fourth of July breakfast table. The blue pillow covers are from our playroom. They are from Ikea. I already had an acrylic tray on hand but I wanted to make a new insert. If you do not have an acrylic tray, you can use a clear shadow box frame. They are super inexpensive and double as a tray when upside down. I cut a piece of white tag board the size I needed  and used the nautical stencils and Wild Blueberry paint. Kind of love this lighthouse. It’s so dang cute. It has me wanting to do some artwork now. I also tied some jute around the handles of the tray just to keep with the nautical theme. All of the other cute little embellishments are just stickers!  The nautical sailboat stickers are nice and strong so they will stay on but can be removed easily for washing. So easy and so simple. Just my style. To make the cupcake toppers, I used two punches. I used the Wild Blueberry paint in light strokes on the large circle to keep it weathered looking. I placed the smaller white circle on top while the paint was wet. No glue needed. Then I added one of the nautical sailboat stickers. Taped to a straw cut in half, they were ready to go. What’s better than a sweet treat in the garden? My kids were in heaven. With very little effort you can pull together such a sweet little space for entertaining. Of course you can swap out the cupcakes and milk for cocktails and apps, too. To see last year’s Fourth of July table go here. To see my past 12 Months of Martha projects, click here. Enjoy your day.