As I mentioned on my post on Monday I am getting ready for the monthly meeting of the G.G.'s, a group of special ladies who come to my house once a month for lunch, laughter and fun.
I love place cards and think that they really just dress up the table and furthermore that "where shall I sit" awkward moment is avoided. Besides, I think that people just know that you care about them if you have made the effort to set a place just with them in mind.
Place Cards are used all over the world. The White House currently employs three full-time employees as calligraphers who address all the invitations, awards, proclamations and of course place cards. I am fortunate to have not one but two people in my family both named Linda, who are trained and beautiful calligraphers. Of course they are not always here but when we get together during the holidays if they are here I tap on them to please do the place cards. I do not care how expensive the printing or how beautiful the font, there is no mechanically produced card that can even compare with a hand written one by a calligrapher.
Now that I have talked about beautiful calligraphy cards here are the three samples that I have come up with for the luncheon and I have to try and decide which one to use - I will tell you that one is a surprise.
The one in the front is the simplest to make - and you do not have to have a draw program to make these place cards. Simply create a 3x3 1/2 rectangle and pick a font and print these out in word and cut them out, fold in the middle and all I did was add a sticker, the "Boo" and the "Kitty" for Kitti. The card in the middle can be downloaded and printed from the following link: http://www.celebratemag.com/uploadedFiles/Celebrate/Party_Art/Christmas/Deck%20the%20Halls%20Place%20Cards.pdf. It is a free download, there are (4) to a sheet and you can either save the file and print or save the file and bring into a draw program and type in the names. If you prefer to just print you can write the names and then cut out the cards. One of the things that I do because we have the same people each time is I have a font that I think goes great with everything and I print out all the names in rows on a 8 1/2 x 11 CLEAR label (Avery) and that way I can just cut the names out as I need them and do not waste an expensive label.
Here is the third place card. Do you see it is a cut-out of a small luncheon plate. I saw the plates (8 for .97¢) and so loved the graphic that I bought them not knowing what I would use them for besides a paper plate. This is the easiest of the three. If you look closely you will see that the area around the spider is raised giving you easy lines to cut around. All you do is cut into the plate and decide which look you like the line going down the name or not, then you cut around and stop at the top edge and cut straight out and then fold the plate over evenly and I cut out one of those clear labels and put on the front. The card looks good from all sides and very professional, it does not look like a paper plate. Watch for the luncheon tablescape to see which one I use for the luncheon.
This is the only other item that I used to make the cards. You do not have to have one but they are around $10 and well worth every penny. This is a scoring board which comes with a little bone- folder and then in the front of the first photo is a regular bone-folder. The second photo shows the back of the scoring board with templates to make envelopes and cards. Using this scoring board you will always get a clean crisp fold in the card or any card that you are making.
Sources
Paper Plates, Walmart
Stickers (on both of the place cards, the plain one and the download), Little Yellow Bicycle
Cardstock
Avery 8 1/2 x 11 Clear Label
Font - TT Hanford Script 36 pt
Bone Folder - Martha Stewart
Scoring Board w/small Bone Folder - Martha Stewart
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