Simple Chairback Covers Made From Placemats

When we first moved into our house, I was not sure if I wanted bar stools at the little bar area of the counter. But a friend of mine was having a yard sale and selling these chairs that were her mom's...

I knew  I could breathe some new life in them and decided to paint them white.  I would have left the seats alone but I have too many things already that have that white and wood look so I committed and made them all white.

These chairs are really sturdy but the country look of the back of them is not really the look I am going for.  Since power tools are out, I decided to cover them up a bit.  My first thought was using a kitchen towel or cloth napkin because I was looking for a no sew project.  But they proved to be kind of big until I realized a placemat was a good size to work with.

 I found these at Pier 1 on clearance and since they had the color of my kitchen in them, I grabbed them up.  I also figure I can make a few sets of these if I grow tired of this one.

 I needed to fold it over to give it a clean look and to fit the back of the chair. 

I stitched it closed on the bottom.

 They had this cute ball fringe on them but I had to cut them off on one side for this to work.

Velcro is a delightful invention, is it not?  I used it for my closure since I wanted to be able to remove these easily. I also used it to secure the one side I folded down. I used super duper, stickier than sticky Velcro too. 

At first, I was going to do it like this but I wanted the look to fold over so I changed it to this...

It was fun.  Hope you might be inspired to do something similar.  I will let you know what else I come up.  I have another idea to do this but I have not found the perfect placemat or material yet.
I want to do one like this pillow from Pottery Barn... 

 So ridiculously cute!  

I promise to post it when I do it. I am totally inspired.

Let me know what you think!  Your comments make me happy.  Really.  They do.

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