Conditioning (the Pavlov’s dog kind, not the silky-smooth
hair kind) is a powerful thing. Every time I pull out our blue vinyl
tablecloth, Rose’s eyes grow three times their original size, her little feet
start running in place, and the most wonderfully adorable “ooooh” comes from
her itty bitty perfect mouth. She now associates this white and blue floral
drop cloth as the beginning of her fun activity time.
But there is one problem. Vinyl tablecloths are not made to
be used as drop cloths on the floor; therefore, many a time when Rose tried to
walk on the cloth it would shift and my
poor baby would fall. Fortunately, the activity we would be doing would be
enough of a distraction to prevent any crying/whining. But when i
t comes to my baby, I like to prevent possible boo-boos before they can happen.
So I thought on it and I had previously seen posts online of
people putting dots or lines of hot glue on the bottom of their toddler’s socks
to make them no-skid. So why couldn’t I do this for my drop cloth? Well, I can
and I did. And the best part is it only took 15 minutes from beginning to end
(that included taking silly pictures for this blog)! Here’s how I did it.
Step 1
Turn the vinyl tablecloth over so that the fuzzy cloth side
is facing upward. You can do this either on a tabletop or a hard floor. If you
do it on a table that is smaller than your tablecloth, make sure you find a
weight (like the bowl I used) so the cloth doesn’t slide while you are working
on it.
Safety Warning: Hot glue is… hot! Keep it away from kids. I
recommend doing this during naptime when no kids are around. Another tip I
learned is keep the pets locked away while doing this. Puppies and kitties do
not always understand what we are doing.
Step 2
Plug in and warm up your hot glue gun. I needed an extension
cord so that it would easily reach all four corners of the cloth. It took about
5-6 sticks of glue, so be prepared.
I started at one of the corners and tested to make sure the
hot glue did not leak or seep through and ruin my tabletop. In some places it
seemed to melt the vinyl side a bit, but not too terribly that I felt I needed
to stop or that my tabletop was in danger. Continue checking the bottom side of
the cloth throughout the activity. I would really hate if anyone’s table or
floor got messed up on my account.
Squeeze the trigger while making a fairly thick line of glue
and lightly pressing the tip of the gun into the cloth. I made a line all the
way around the edge of the cloth and then made long diagonal lines from corner
to corner. Honestly, you can make any pattern your heart wishes. You don’t have
to overdo it, my lines were around 3-4 inches apart.
That’s it! You’re done and now you have a skid-proof dropcloth
for your child’s craft and activity time.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you may have after
trying this out for yourself.
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