DIY - Coastal Placemats

Oh, I'm sooo glad with the superb nice warm weather we're experiencing right now. It makes me dream of the beach, traveling, visiting places and in general, having fun!
Ha that has to wait a bit, we usually take a break in August, when Mr. RLC is on vacation from work.
In the mean time I have to make believe we're living on the waterfront. :)
And the project today is a good example of it.

As most of my projects, this one began with some leftovers from previous projects.

I had these remnants of ¼" plywood that I used on the bookcases in my bedroom.
Using a round placemat I already had, the round shape (15" dia.), was transferred onto the wood. The four pieces of wood were bundled up with tape before cutting out the design with my BladeRunner, you can also use a jigsaw.

how to cut out a circle shape out of wood with a Rockwell BladeRunner

Next, you have to sand, sand and SAND those edges very well before painting or like in my case, stain them. I applied one coat of Rust-Oleum Wood Stain - Driftwood, the same I used on my kitchen table. As soon as I finished applying the stain, it was wiped off with a dry rag. The right picture below shows the difference between the natural and stained placemats.

Once the stain was dry, the fun part began. I wanted to give them a nautical feel, and thought about giving them a rope border but alas, those were hard to paint. Finally I found this rope border circle clip art, blew it to the size of my placemats and traced two simple lines as shown below.