Leaf-shaped Place Mats for round Dining Table

Materials: 6 PANNA Place Mats, DRALLA Chopping Mats (set of 2), Xacto Knife

Description: Most place mats are rectangular or round, and therefore don’t go well with round dining table. The former simply have the wrong shape, while the latter tend to be too big.

A few years ago, I brought a two leaf shaped felt mats and 6 matching felt coasters from Germany. While this was enough to cover the center of my table, I still had the challenge of what to do for the actual place mats. I tried to order more of the felt mats from Germany, but did not have any success as of yet.

During my last visit at IKEA, it finally hit me. Why not use the material of the green PANNA place mats to cut myself some that matched my felt mats? I could make myself a template, and cut the PANNA accordingly.


As I looked around, I saw the DRALLA Chopping Mats as an ideal material for the templates. They are rigid enough to cut along their edges, but they are thin enough to cut them to shape using scissors.

When I got home with the place and chopping mats, I traced the shape of my large felt mats onto the chopping mat. Then I cut the chopping mat with sharp scissors, and sanded the edges until they were smooth.

I placed the other Chopping Mat onto the kitchen counter, and layered a PANNA Place Mat and the template on top of it. It took me a moment to find the nicest placement of the template over the PANNA Place Mat.

Then I used a Xacto knife with a brand new blade to cut along the edge of the template. The foamy material was easy to cut, except the tight corners where the leaf meets its stem. The results are pretty nice…

You can be totally creative in creating your own shapes. My advice is to avoid tight cutting radiuses, and replace the blade after 2 mats.

~ Modernista, California