Thanksgiving Place Cards

Place cards bring a certain elegance to any table no matter how simple or elaborate the design.  It's nice to have a place at the table for each of your guests, and the idea of putting a card which designates where one ought to sit makes the table even more special.  This year I decided to make simple place cards for my small table in autumnal shades of browns and golds, because I wanted to complement the colors of my china and linens for our dinner.

Place cards can be bought at stationery stores with embellishments already on them and they can be of the variety that fold for easy placing.  These tend to cost a bit of money, but they're nice and they're very convenient if you don't want to create a fuss.  For my table, though, I bought colored business cards and used stamps to make an easy monogram for each person.  I like the results and I think you will too.  

There is still plenty of time to create these before Thanksgiving and I encourage you to have someone who's crafty to create them for the table. However, they're simple enough for you, the host, to make when you have a spare moment.

An easy craft.  

Crafting Materials

• Alphabet Stamps
• Stamp Mounts
• Bracket Stickers (optional)
• Colored Business Cards
• Ink Pad (I used a gold pigment)
• Place Card Holder 

These bracket stickers found at craft stores are so elegant.  They make wonderful tags for gifts and packaged baked goods, but they can easily be applied to a business card for this kind of project.

Choose the letters of your guests and either spell out their name or create a monogram like I did.  It's so easy to use clear stamp mounts with rubber stamps because it takes the guess work out of keeping things straight. 

I found these mini pumpkin ornaments made of silver glass and thought they would be just the thing to hold place cards.  I love the color of the minis.

For my project I found a wreath stamp to frame each monogram.  The wreath was placed on the mount first and then the letters were centered.  With a bit of pigment from the ink pad I tested out the design on a piece of paper to see how it would look.

To further embellish each place card, I continued part of the wreath design on each corner.  The corners received 1/4 of the wreath stamp to make a frame.

For the bracket sticker version, I centered the label onto the business card first.  Using the monogram stamps without the wreath, I centered the letters and stamped the monogram.  Using the ink pad, I daubed pigment haphazardly around the place card to give it an old rustic look.  I love this effect!

 Framed wreath place card on the left and antiqued bracket on the right.

For my table this year I'm using jacquard linens, gilded Wedgwood drabware, colored glass ornaments and easy place cards.  

Stay tuned for my Thanksgiving table!