Place Card tutorial

Wow...three posts in as many days : ) You lucky, lucky things.

This is a really easy tutorial for placecards for a Special Occasion.

I made these for my recent birthday, which was on Easter Saturday, hence the proliferation of bunnies.

Sadly, I didn't take any photos of the individual steps, but these really are so simple.

Step 1 - Choose your theme and colours. Because it was MY freakin' birthday, I matched the colours with the dress I was wearing.

Step 2 - Choose your images. I used rubber stamps that I had, stamped and embossed them then coloured with watercolour pencils, but you could just as easily use pre-printed logos or pics or whatever, or print some clip art up. They will need to be on slightly thicker paper so that they stand up.

Step 3 - Decide how wide you want your placecards to be. In my case, this was governed by how I wanted the names to be on the cards. You could simply hand write the names, or use printed labels, but I used small alphabet stamps to stamp the names which I then cut around, so my width was determined by the longest name I stamped. Obviously, if you have a longer image then this may also determine how wide the cards should be.

Step 4 - Decide how tall you want your placecards to sit. This will be governed by the size of your images. If your images are tall then the height of your placecards will have to be sufficient to support them. As an example, my cards were 9cm wide across the front and about 5 cm deep, giving them a height when folded of about 2.5cm.

Step 5 - Cut around your chosen images, leaving a tab section along the bottoms of the images. LEAVING THE TAB SECTION IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! The tab should extend about 1cm below the bottom of the image. I cut just around the outside of the borders of the image, but you could cut in a square or circle etc, etc. Put the images to one side.

Step 6 - Fold the place cards in half along the short side, but then flatten out again.

Step 7 - Measure how long the tab on the bottom of your image is and then using a ruler and a craft knife cut a slit in the bottom half of the placecard. This will be where the tab of the image will go.

Step 8 - Stick a small piece of double sided tape on the back of the placecard underneath the slit you have just cut. This will secure the tab when it is poked through. I guess you could also use glue, but I prefer tape as it wont distort the card and it's easy to snip off the required length.

Step 9 - Assemble the placecards by tucking the tab through the slits and securing with the adhesive tape. It's easiest to do the cards one at a time as otherwise the tape could stick to everything else!!

Step 10 - Attach stamped or printed names or hand write names onto the place cards.

Step 11 - Refold the placecards in half and you should have an image which extends above the fold of the card and you are done!!

See...told you it was easy : )