You can elevate an ordinary meal with friends or family into an elegant affair with the addition of place cards! Today’s tutorial will teach you how to create place cards that come together in a matter of minutes with a botanical flair.
Last year, I read The Little Book of Hygge, which focuses on Scandinavian techniques to add coziness to a space — particularly in chilly months. The book mentioned the concept of bringing outdoor elements inside: a twig here, a rock there. Today’s easy botanical place card tutorial embraces that idea! In this project, pretty, clean calligraphy services to complement a sprig of whatever is in season. Each place card comes together in just a couple of minutes, and your guests will be utterly charmed!
You only need a few supplies for this tutorial:
Next, use a ruler and a pencil to make the following guidelines on one of your watercolor cards:
Now, use Janet Style calligraphy to write your guest’s name on the place card. It’s best to use a thin ink for this step — such as iron gall — because the lettering is so small. (Thin ink = thin upstrokes.)
Now, use an X-Acto knife to cut between the 3/8″ marks on the top and the bottom guidelines.
Once your ink has dried, use a high-quality eraser to get rid of all your pencil marks.
Repeat this step as needed until you have calligraphed and cut all of your place cards.
When all of your place cards are ready, go outside and cut some greenery. Whatever is in season and has a thin stem is great. In spring and summer, think small flowers (e.g. lavender). In fall/winter, evergreens are great. For this tutorial, I cut three evergreen sprigs.
Grab a card and insert your index finger through the cuts you made in step 4.
Then, insert the greenery under the calligraphed name strip, ensuring that the greenery stays in front of the rest of the card. And that’s it — you’re done!
I’m in love with this tutorial because it’s classy and beautiful, but it doesn’t require a big time investment. As the mother of two young kids, projects like this one are a godsend! I can realistically make these place cards for our upcoming holiday celebrations because the project isn’t complicated or fussy.
If you do have a bit more time on your hands, though, consider the following “uplevels”:
I hope that you enjoy this quick project, which originally appeared in Calligraphy Crush Magazine (Issue 16). Check out that issue for a free place card template, which you can pair with a light box to make this project even quicker! Thanks for reading, and happy almost-holidaze!
Warmly,
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