Add style to any charger by decoupaging it with a paper napkin, like these blue and white floral napkins that match my vintage dishes! This inexpensive DIY project is totally customizable to your personal decor style!

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Hi friends! Welcome to Thrifty Style Team, hosted by Redhead Can Decorate. We love sharing our monthly inspiration with you and showing you creative ways to decorate a beautiful home on a shoestring budget!



This month we all have 🌷🍄Spring on our minds and I'm sure you do as well! Let us show you how we're decorating our homes for Spring the thrifty way!

Thrifty Blue and White Decoupage Chargers

I discovered something interesting about myself...I'm not a big fan of dark solid colors. When I use a dark color, I much prefer the lighter look that a pattern brings.

Last year I painted some IKEA bamboo wood chargers with navy suede paint, and while I loved them for awhile, this year they felt too heavy. I decided to lighten them up with pretty blue and white floral napkins that match my vintage blue and white dishes.

My Spring dining room is a celebration of blue and white. Vintage blue and white, that is! I've been collecting blue and white transferware and vintage pieces for years and it is a color that never fails to make me smile! I'll be sharing the whole room next week. Pretty chargers that match my dishes and are easy and inexpensive to make? This project is a total winner in my book!

With all the brown outside (after our hard freeze), this was not the year to do a neutral Spring! Nope, I am celebrating with color, vibrant beautiful color! Like the color I added to my Spring mantel, and the flower pot wreath I recently made. My Spring nest centerpiece is bursting with fresh Spring colors as well!

You're probably no stranger to decoupage, but I'm sharing some tips and tricks today (as well as a minor fail) to get the best results.

How to decoupage chargers with napkins

These chargers from IKEA are more like really wide, shallow bowls. That rounded shaped proved a little challenging. You can certainly do this technique with any chargers, check out the dollar store for a great selection.

I'll include the complete supplies list below the tutorial, but let's get started on this budget friendly way to update chargers to match your decor! 

First, because my painted chargers had a texture on them, I lightly sanded them and wiped them clean with a tack cloth.

Next, open up the napkin you'll be using. These blue floral napkins are from Home Goods and they're dinner size. You'll need to separate the layers of the napkin (they're usually 2 ply or even 3 ply) so just the decorative layer is revealed. Be careful not to tear the napkin while you're separating the layers.

At this point, I like to lay the napkin over the charger to make sure it will be a good fit. I pressed the excess napkin over the edge of the charger and trimmed it off, leaving about an inch.

Because my charger was bowl-like, you can see that there are creases where the napkin has to fold over itself. This is really hard to avoid, but the good news is that it's hardly noticeable once the decoupage dries. I did press the creases flat with my fingernail to make them as seamless as possible.

I lifted up half of the napkin and brushed a thin coat of decoupage medium on one side at a time. Once the plate was covered, I used my hand to smooth out the paper napkin and get those creases as flat as possible.

I used my fingernail to crease the edges of the charger, flipped it over and trimmed off the excess with scissors (ignore my creepy looking hand, LOL).

Normally this is when I'd brush on a coat of decoupage medium to the top of the napkin, to seal and protect it. However, this is when I realized that I goofed.

I wasn't considering the fact that the napkin is so thin, it's virtually see through, and so once the glue dried, the blue paint showed through. Eergh 😩

How did I solve my mistake?

The easiest solution was to paint right over the top of the napkin with white chalk paint to get a neutral surface, and then wait for the paint to dry and start over. 😒 I really should have known better, so please remember this tip! Your surface should be neutral unless you don't mind a darker color showing through!

Obviously it all worked out in the end. My chargers just have an extra layer of napkin on them, but no one would ever know!

What I love the most is how well this floral pattern plays off my vintage blue and white dishes! I love it so much! Here's an easy way to  paint a plastic charger with a bleached and weathered wood look. I have quite a stack of chargers now, in various colors. They make a dining table look polished and I love the way you can emphasize your decor with chargers!

Keep reading for more Spring inspiration from the Thrifty Style Team!

Supplies 

Thrifty Style Team Spring DIYs and Decor Ideas