the "is it fall yet?" table runner

So who else is ready for fall?  I sure am.  I want to make soup and wear scarves and eat things that taste like pumpkin.  And even though fall in the south is usually very brief, I always make the most of it.  What's wrong with bringing out fall decorations in September?  I don't see any problem with it.  And I'm going to be even crazier and show you a fall table runner I made this week...in August.  Crazy, right?

Recently I found a set of four placemats at Ross for $3.49.

They caught my eye because of their fall colors, but my table seats six.  Plus we're taking a temporary hiatus from placemats since my kid likes to take them off the table and mess with them, though most of the time he ends up handing them right back to me.  Still, not worth the hassle right now.

So I decided to try to piece them together to make a table runner instead.  Given the dimensions of my table and the placemats themselves, I realized that the runner only needed to be two placemats long, so I used hot glue to stick them together.

And because they were cheap placemats, they didn't line up perfectly.  But I figured that would happen.  I thought about hot-gluing a piece of ribbon or a strip of fabric down the middle to cover up that messy seam, but I didn't have any on hand that coordinated with the brown and orange of the placemats.  So I took the easy (and hopefully just as aesthetically pleasing) route and centered a third placemat in the middle.  Once I had it where I wanted it, I hot-glued it down.

And there you go.  A table runner in under five minutes.

So what do you think?  I have one placemat leftover, and I'm thinking of making a cute door hanging out of it as opposed to the traditional fall wreath with leaves on it.  If I do, I'll probably have to wait till everyone else in the neighborhood brings out their jack o'lanterns and stuff so I don't look silly.  For now we'll keep the early fall insanity behind closed doors.  :o)

Linking up with Creations by Kara and A Little Tipsy!