Bring the jewel like colors of autumn trees to your table by making these Easy Wood Leaf Napkin Rings! Create your own and add an artsy touch to any casual fall table setting.
Create your own Easy Wood Leaf Napkin Rings by adding unfinished wood leaf shapes that you can paint any color and attach with glue. It’s an inexpensive, fairly quick DIY project that upcycles plain napkin rings into unique seasonal ones.
Find Your Inspiration
These thrifted wood napkin rings looked dull, but I could see that they had some potential. I decided to give them an extra makeover by adding some wooden leaf shapes to them. Painting the wooden leaves in Fall colors would be a nice treatment for this idea. You could add any kind of shape or embellishment to plain napkin rings-there is a wide variety of seasonal and holiday design elements available that you could use for this project.
Makeover Materials
Since these are wood shapes on wooden napkin rings, I decided to use Gorilla Ultimate Wood Glue that was on hand in the workshop. It has a strong waterproof bond, which is reassuring even though these aren’t meant to be submerged in water. Use any wood glue you like, as long as it will make your napkin rings more durable. You might want to use an adhesive like original Gorilla Glue or E 6000 if the napkin rings are made of plastic or metal.
After painting the leaves, you will need to coat them with Krylon UV resistant clear spray to protect the hand painted surface. It’s a product mainly used by artists, but it works ideally for this project. A matte finish or satin finish coating could be used, but I chose a gloss finish to bring out the vivid colors on the leaves. If your napkin rings are unvarnished wood, coat the napkin rings as well, to protect the wood.
Four or five assorted small art brushes will also be needed, and a selection of acrylic paints in fall colors. Or you could choose colors that work with your decorating scheme. Also have a cup of water on hand to clean the brushes. But to get a look similar to what I wanted, you will also need the water to thin the paints and use them like watercolors.
Leaf Embellishments
These unpainted wood leaf shapes are 2.5″ to 3″ long, making them a good size for most napkin rings. I saw these 3D oak leaf stickers and thought they would make a nice extra embellishment. Those are optional, leave these off if you want to.
A Different Way to Use Acrylic Paints
To use acrylics in a watercolor style, squeeze out a very small quantity of a paint and add a little bit of water to that. Mix each color thoroughly to dilute to a thinner or clearer consistency. Some paints will be more opaque, and some colors are already more transparent before they are diluted . I used this artist’s palette, but you could use small cups or plates for this.
Painting the Leaves
First off, you can leave the back of each leaf unpainted if you like.
If you’re using different colors on one piece, start by brushing on the lightest colors first, then add darker colors on top. Layer the colors while the paints are still wet for a softer effect. I spattered on this bright orange for a mottled look. Let the colors dry between applications if you want them to contrast more sharply, and don’t want the edges to blend.
Layer on paints from the same color family for more subtle effects. Here I’m brushing a brighter shade of red onto the points of the leaf.
Finishing Steps
After the leaf shapes dry completely, spray on the protective coating according to product instructions. I also sprayed the wood napkin rings at the same time. This was mainly to protect the wood, but the gloss coating brought out the rich color and grain in them! These might actually be genuine walnut.
When the coating is dry on everything, glue the leaf shapes onto the napkin rings. Add a 3D leaf sticker for extra embellishment if you like. Let the adhesive cure up for at least a couple of hours before handling them, ideally overnight.
Note: The coating and the glue will make your napkin rings more durable, but they will be spot clean only. I would not recommend putting them in the dishwasher or submerging them in water.
These Easy Wood Leaf Napkin Rings really carry a pop of color to a Fall tablescape. They are elegantly rustic, and will add the rich colors of the season to many future Autumn gatherings. Family members and guests are sure to enjoy the uniqueness they will bring to each table setting.
For another unusual napkin ring idea, you might also find inspiration from these DIY Jeweled Bug Napkin Rings.