Thanksgiving Batik Table Runner without Wax!

I have been busy decorating for Thanksgiving. This is my favorite holiday! Yes, I can honestly say I enjoy Thanksgiving more than Christmas. No presents, no trying to get all the gifts in the car, no trying to hit all the relatives in a few short days.

Thanksgiving for me growing up was a huge dinner organized and overseen by my grandmother and her five sisters. Every Thanksgiving was spent with tons of family (I'm talking 50 or more people) and lots and lots and lots of food.

With this being our first Thanksgiving in Kansas without being surrounded by family, I decided to spruce up our new dining table to keep things warm and cozy.

I had an old, heavy, canvas seed corn sack in my fabric stash. I cut the apart the back and the front and sewed them together at the bottom to make a long runner.

I just love the stripes on the bag. To create my design I found some leaf patterns online that I used for stencils. I traced each stencil with glue and then added glue leaf veins. I let the glue dry for about 24 hours.

Using watered down ACRYLIC paint I then painted in the leaves and let it dry overnight. It's important to use acrylic because it's latex based and won't wash out if you need to throw the runner in the washing machine.

The next day I used watered down blue and green for the background and allow to dry overnight. I added a few glue accents in the background for more visual interest. Be careful how watery your blue/green paint is because it will bleed under the glue into the leaves if you aren't careful. I had a lot of bleeding but I actually enjoyed the way it looked in the end.

After the runner is dry, soak the whole thing in warm water for 20-30 minutes. This will loosen up the glue to be removed. I found a butter knife scraped under (not across) the glue worked well at removing the glue. You could also try wiping it off with a damp rag.

Once the glue is wiped off (you aren't going to get every bit off), allow runner to dry and iron it flat. Enjoy a beautiful piece of artwork on Turkey Day!