I have always wanted to make DIY place cards in one of those swirly pretty scripts, but that was not a project I wanted to try out for the first time at my wedding. (Could you imagine that stress?!)  So fast forward 4 years later we threw a surprise 35th anniversary party for my parents with about 30 guests. I thought that was the perfect number to give it a try! I’d like to think of myself as a pretty creative person but my handwriting, not so much… So after numerous attempts at calligraphy I found a super easy cheat! These place cards are sure to add a serious “WOW YOU MADE THESE??” factor to any event!

Materials

Water color paints of your choice (I bought a cheap multi-color kit from Michaels)

Paint brushes (again just bought a cheap pack, but beware my brush hairs occasionally shed on my cards so I had to pick them off)

Water color pad of paper

Gold leafing

Modge Podge

Pen, for the outline

Printer

Scissors

Small cup of water

 

Instructions

 

Step 1

Rip a few sheets of paper from the watercolor paper pad. Fold the paper into 3s (Like you are folding a letter) and then fold it in half. Go over the creases in the paper a few times and then rip the paper at each crease. You can fold the paper however you would like to make the place cards different sizes. You can also cut the paper to a specific size but I like the raw edges from it being ripped.

 

Step 2

Prepare a cup or small bowl of water, your paints, and a paint brush. Using a sheet of the water color paper just play around with the colors. I knew I wanted to use pinks so from my palette I was dipping my brush between 3 shades of pink. Have fun with it! Use more water, less color, larger swipes, smaller ones, until you decide on a design and color that you like.

 

Step 3

Once you have the design you like and your place cards cut and ready you can start painting! Not every card will be the same so that takes allot of the pressure off. Go ahead and paint them all, make sure not to pile the finished cards on top of each other, space them out so they can dry. I chose to paint an ombre style design by swiping the paint brush from left to right starting from the bottom (“now we here” #Drake reference lol) . This way majority of the color is at the bottom and by the time you are at the top most of the color has already been absorbed.

Step 4

I let my cards dry overnight before I did the gold leafing. Once I was ready for this step I took a paper dish and spilled out some leaf onto the dish. (I use paper dishes for everything…) The leafing I purchased was kind of layered so I had to separate some of the pieces and break them apart so they would be smaller. (A similar product, HERE) You can make them as big or small as you would like, depending on how much leafing you would like on the place cards. You could also skip this step all together if you don’t want this detail!

Once I had them separated I spilled a little pile of the modge podge on the dish and grabbed a place card and my paint brush. The instructions on the package for the gold leaf said to use a specific “leafing glue”, I didn’t, but it didn’t and it worked fine. I then dipped my brush in the modge podge and painted a small area on the bottom half of the card, about halfway across. Using the same brush I very lightly dipped the brush onto a gold flake and then placed it on the card in the corner. (It is important to not re dip your brush in the modge podge at this point because you don’t want too much on your brush, it can cause the golf leafing to ball up, it is VERY delicate, kind of like tissue paper.) Once you placed the flake on the card you can brush over it with whatever is left on the brush. Continue this process until you are done. Again, no two cards will be alike so don’t stress making it perfect!

Step 5

Again I let the cards dry overnight again before moving on to the “fake calligraphy” step. To dry, I made two piles of the cards before I went to bed and placed a few heavy books on them to make sure they stayed flat.

Like I said, my handwriting is just OK and I am in such awe of people that can easily draw words with gorgeous scrolls and curves. That being said, I knew my handwriting skills were going to make or break these place cards. Kind of like have a beautifully decorated birthday cake and then having the “Happy Birthday” writing looking like a 4 year old wrote it. I tried a few methods, and this one I will share worked the best.

You can search online for a font you like, I used the font “Sweet Pea” and downloaded it from www.dafont.com for free. (BTW downloading a font is SUPER easy and opens your world to so many more DIYs!!)  Once I had it downloaded I opened a word document and wrote all the guests names, bolded them, and played around with sizing to match the place cards. Once that was done I printed them and then cut them out in a small rectangle.

Step 6

Once you have all the names cut out grab your pen and place a name on top of a place card. Line it up so it is pretty close to being centered. I did not measure it to perfection, just go for it! Now this part is pretty simple but could get tiring for your hand. With one hand hold the name in place and then with pressure on the pen, trace the outline of the name. It is important that you are pressing down hard on the pen so you can see the indented outline on the place card when you remove the name paper. Also, make sure you are not just tracing the middle of the letters; they have to be outlined so you know which areas are thicker than others on the letters. (This makes it look like calligraphy) Continue to do this for all the names. (Do NOT throw away the printed names, you will need them for the next step!)

 

Step 7

Final Step!! I wanted to stick with the gold theme and used a gold paint marker for writing the names. You can use whatever color you like to match. I bought a black paint marker too because I wasn’t sure which I would like better and I love how black looks like real ink calligraphy.

 

Pick up one of the place cards and take a look at the slight outline you can see of the name. Find the matching printed name and place it in front of the place cards. I did this so I could use that for reference if I was having any issues seeing how a certain letter looked, I found that really helpful. With your marker trace over the name indents on the place card. I started letter by letter, as the names went on I got a little better and was able to do a few more letters at a time, but you can do them one at a time. I then went back and colored in the thicker spots on the letters or fixed any that were a little off.