Not Your Uncle’s Placemats

I love placemats, especially non-fabric ones like these, because they make my life easier. They contain the mess on to something that I can easily shake off and it doesn’t involve laundering or ironing. These one’s from Bob’s Your Uncle are really cool. They have a few different types, so guaranteed to please all.

I love the name of the company that makes these placemats: Bob’s Your Uncle. It’s a paper products company, which I always assumed was named such by American design guys being funny. Turns out they’re a British design couple and “Bob’s Your Uncle” is a British expression for a simple task. Straight from the source:

Legend has it Prime Minister Robert Cecil appointed his nephew to a prestigious post in the late 1880s, therefore to have Bob as your uncle was a guarantee of success. In that spirit, we think these fun placemats are definitely a sure thing.

As a longtime anglophile, I think I might adopt this saying as it is far superior to the American expression for easy task, a.k.a. easy as pie. It’s the worst saying ever. Making pie crusts is really hard. If it were easy there wouldn’t be so many ready-made pie crusts trying to masquerade as homemade on millions of Thanksgiving dining tables each year.

But, yet I digress. The diner and roadside photos were taken by the husband half of Bob’s Your Uncle design duo. Katie has the diner placemats. But, I’m partial to the roadsign placemats above. These kinds of old school kitsch would lighten up my traditional décor. But I think they’ll also look excellent in my beach house — fine, fine, my imagined beach house or better yet future beach house. The really ingenious ones are the kids coloring pad placemats. They color and soil them and then you throw them away, or recycle, whatever floats your boat. Either way, it’s easier than washing them. 

Pick up the pads at Daily Grommet or visit Bob’s Your Uncle’s website. They have some really neat stuff. Including this cookbook written by children — unedited so you get the picture. I think I need to buy this for someone for Christmas. Yes, Classics like me are “crazy” and shop in the Fall for Christmas.

Oh and Katie actually laminated hers in an attempt to be frugal. Definitely an option for frugal Funs and Classics. But the idea of just throwing them away? Sigh. Really appeals to the Organic Freedom, or at least my sister.