Party Napkins
By Karina | April 23, 2008
I had a birthday party this weekend and I wanted to share one of my tiny choices – I only offered my guests cloth napkins! Here is my party spread:
let me show you a close-up of the actual napkins:
Look at how many napkins I had! there’s a big old stack there – I thought I only had 8 or 12, but once I started to go through my cabinet, it turns out I have closer to 30.
I also only used real glasses and cups for the drinks – I even labeled the cabinet where they were – not because I didn’t trust my friends to figure it out, but because everyone is so used to the ubiquitous plastic cup at parties that I wanted to emphasize that it was ok for my guests to go into my cupboards and pull out what they needed to use.
Of course, because I don’t have a dishwasher I had to do 3 rounds of dishes because my dish-drainer is so small. But it’s totally worth it to know that I avoided using a bunch of plastic cups or paper napkins – even if the cups may have been recyclable.
When you have parties, are you able to use reusables for your guests?
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Hah! I just had my recurring “disposables” conversation with my mom this past weekend, at a family dinner… her: “can’t we just use disposable plates for dessert? Please?” Me: “No. I’ll wash the dishes.” Her: [insert exasperated sigh here]
We’ve been having this conversation for years. Sometimes she goes ahead with the disposables anyway, but more often than not, I get to wash the extra dishes. It’s totally worth it.
PS- is that a cheese ball on the party table?!
I’ve had that same conversation with my mom! The most recent spin was her suggesting that I buy individually wrapped muffins for the post-wedding brunch … because then if they don’t all get eaten, it’s OK ’cause they are wrapped! um, what!?!?!
in fairness to her, she does try … she refuses bags at stores when she doesn’t need them and she tells me that she brings her cloth bags grocery shopping.
tiny choices, tiny choices …
Holy crap! I’ve had the same one with my family too:)
…not about muffins but the disposables.
of course it is a cheese ball! I love cheese balls. so much. mmm.
Here is an excellent tutorial for making cloth napkins:
http://www.purlbee.com/mollys-handmade-napkins/
I’ve used it, and it’s easy as pie. It’s a great way to reuse fabric.
it looks so complicated! but you say it’s easy? the napkins are SO PRETTY.
We had a party about 2 weeks back and we had a small stockpile of disposables(plates/cups/napkins), so we used those. The plates and napkins got trashed, but we decided to wash and dry the disposables and use them again in the future(they’re 6 plastics, and we can’t recycle them here). A different kind of tiny choice, I guess…
We’ve got some bedsheets that have seen better days–I’m thinkin’ they’re soon to become cloth napkins. Thanks for the link, Virginia.
I have some of those bedsheets too – what a good idea for reuse!
Alas, that was the one not-so-good part of my awesome Surprise Party that my wife threw me for my 30th back in January. It was an awesome shindig, but the mandatory black paper “Over The Hill” plates/napkins/decorations kinda brought me down (and not for the obvious reasons)
Some of those decorations will still be in the landfill when I turn 60!
you should save them for your 60th birthday!
I had a birthday party in March and we used disposable plates, utensils, and napkins, but real glasses. Last week, I had a “playdate” party and used real plates and glasses and served all finger foods. We still used disposable napkins, but I’m getting a little better with each party!
that’s great! it’s the utensils that are so difficult for me – finger foods are key!
so i’m a bit confused. If you can compost, is it better to use compostable or to wash the re-useable? i think about this a lot now that we’re composting, with water waste and such.
we started a conversation on this compost vs. reuse over in the comments starting here… I think the general consensus is that after the energy and water used not just during creation of the paper or cloth napkins, reusables are better b/c the water and energy cost of washing is much less than transportation and disposal costs. we think!
[...] real stuff! Next time you have a party, consider using real dishes and utensils and napkins. (Here’s some inspiration.) Think of it as treating your guests like, you know, guests in your home–instead of messy [...]