DIY no-sew gold striped burlap table runner for under $6

I have had my eye on some lovely gold dot burlap at Joann Fabrics for a while. I considered using it for my DIY jewelry board and then decided to use it for a table runner for our new white table in our formal dining room space (which isn’t so formal at all the way we have it). When it came time to actually purchase it (with coupon in hand of course), I realized that brown burlap isn’t really my style. It doesn’t go with our home design color palette at all, but it was so so lovely.

As I was about to get it cut, I decided to grab some white burlap and walk the store a bit. I decided I could probably paint white burlap and make a runner, originally thinking I would do dots just like the burlap at the store. I love the texture of burlap, but the brown, while very lovely in some spaces, won’t work with our mostly grey and white colors.

So DIY it was! I went home and got to work right away as I expected it wouldn’t take long. I decided to go with stripes simply because I really love stripes.

Materials

• White burlap ($3.99/yard before a 25% off one cut of fabric coupon). I used 2.5 yards and it actually makes four runners. I put a plain white burlap runner on our larger rectangular table and saved the other two pieces.
• Metallic gold acrylic paint ($6.99 for one huge bottle, but I had a 40% off one full price item coupon and only used about a quarter of the bottle. I recommend buying a small bottle for $2.49 before a coupon.)
• Sponge brush or sponge stencil brush
• Paint plate of some sort. Just use something you have at home.
• Painters tape
• Paper for underneath the runner during painting.

Directions

• Cut your burlap to the size you want. I went with 11 inches on our smaller table and 12.5 on our rectangular table.

• Place the runner on paper, a drop cloth or something else. I used Bodhi’s Ikea art easel paper roll.

• Tape the stripes off however you want. Be sure the tape is very secure. You could do some wider, some thinner or all the same. I “eyeballed it” but you could definitely do this by cutting a piece of paper to be the same width as the painters tape and use it to set between stripes. I just guessed and it looks great.

• Pour the paint out and begin dobbing.

• I dobbed so it wouldn’t leak much.

• Continue dobbing.

• Check a stripe. I pulled the tape from the first two stripes to be sure it was all looking great and it was. Then I continued.

• Let it dry before moving it or pulling off the tape. If it moves, the white spaces could get gold paint on them.

• Remove tape and enjoy!

• I also pulled a few strings loose on each side to make it all even and to give it the frayed edge look. I did that on all four sides, but pulled about three strands from the ends to make those a bit more frayed. Love that look.

That’s it. Very easy, quick DIY project. I think I’ll probably do a red and white version for Christmas at my grandma’s this year as well.

With my coupon, one table runner at 2.5 yards long was $1.87. Since I got four out of my cut, I divided the total price by 4. Hope that makes sense. I bought a large bottle of metallic gold paint a while ago at 40% off for another project so used that (the full bottle cost $4.19 with the coupon but I used only a quarter of the bottle). The 1/4 bottle of paint plus the cut of fabric made this project $2.92 because I had the brush and the tape. The brush is 99 cents without a coupon, so if you have nothing to use from home, you will pay $3.93. You can pick up painters tape for around $3 and you’ll use about a quarter of the roll. Hope this helps.

What have you been doing for your home this fall? I want to tackle a DIY wreath of some sort, but haven’t come up with any fabulous ideas.