Paper, Scissors, a Shot Glass and a Hole Punch

Dear Mom,

After 23 years of love and use and sunshine and abuse, our kitchen cabinets are in desperate need of freshening up. These also being the years of paying for college tuition, new cabinets are not an option. Plus, I reallyreallyreally like my tiled countertops and I've been told that they cannot be saved if/when we replace the cabinets. Soooo, My Hero and I have been sanding (him), staining (me) and polyurethane-ing (me).  We are working in small manageable sections which means we can get each bite digested every weekend, but it also means a regularly disheveled kitchen and cleaning up sawdust over and over and over again. And not having things in their place makes me a little edgy. Keeping my eye on the prize. It'll be worth it in the end. And, I have to say, the refreshed cabinets look better than I even imagined would be possible. That helps. A lot.
The first weekend we tackled the worst appearing cabinets on the island. They were very faded by the sunshine. And last weekend we started working our way around the upper cabinets. While waiting for the last coat of polyurethane to dry I put my mind to considering shelf lining paper. I'd used that self sticking liner and did not want to use that again. I wanted something prettier than plain and googled "lace edged shelf paper" or something like that and in my fall down the internet rabbit hole, found a site that had a quote from one of the Little House books and instructions for cutting pretty shelf paper. (I guess Ma Ingalls had Mary and Laura making pretty shelf paper in one of the books. Frankly, they had me at Little House.) Such was my inspiration that I cannot find that website to share it with you. I pretty much immediately stopped googling and gathered my supplies.
I used scissors, brown craft paper (you could use newspaper or white butcher paper or whatever you think would be nice for lining shelves), a hole punch (I am pretty sure Mary and Laura did not have a hole punch.) and a shot glass. (I know for certain that Ma Ingalls would not allow a shot glass in her house, so Mary and Laura did not use one of these either.) I used the shot glass to draw a round edge. You could make pointy edges. Mary and Laura probably made pointy edges.

I folded the craft paper in half and half and half, again and again and again, until it was about 2 inches wide and then started cutting and hole punching the end- like making snow flakes or paper dolls.

So when it was unfolded, I had a lacy looking edge. I did not want to drive myself crazy by trying to make them all the same. It was more fun to try different things for each one. Also, I don't have one of those fancy crafty scrap-bookin' shaped punch things, but if I did, I would have tried using it.
I then trimmed the depth and width of the paper to fit my shelves.
Here is a photo with the paper on the shelves, and the shelves loaded, but before the cabinet doors went back on:

And here is a photo with the doors on the cabinets:

We have a ways to go before we are finished, but so far so good!
Love,
Kim