Tips And Techniques

Place Settings - alternative ideas

July, 28th 2009

In a previous article we looked at ideas for traditional tent-fold place cards.

Here we show you some alternative ideas for your place settings.

Individual menu cards

These are a great idea if you have offered your guests a choice of menu - no more guessing who ordered what! You can use folded card blanks with inserts or keep it simple with the person's details printed onto paper and attached to an A6 backing card.

On this example we printed the individual menus onto ivory stardream paper - 4 per A4 page - and trimmed them to measure 200mm x 95mm. These were then stuck onto A6 size mauve stardream card and finished with a purple glitter double heart.

Tags

Name tags are really versatile - you can attach them to almost any favours, napkins, minatures, glasses - the possibilities are endless.

Either use a tag punch or create your own strip tags. To make a strip tag, Print the names at regular intervals down a piece of card, cut into strips with each name evenly spaced vertically. Trim the end to the length you require and use a hole punch to create the holes for threading ribbon and attaching your tag. Add a small embellishment if you wish, like the diamonte shown here.

Strips or bands

Simple strips of paper can easily be used to make decorative wraps for napkins. Just print out the names onto plain paper and cut into strips. Cut strips of decorative paper into wider strips. Attach the name strip onto the centre of the decorative strip (the adhesive tape pen is great for this). Then trim to size and attach a small piece of double sided sticky tape along one of the short edges on the inside - don't remove the protective cover at this stage.

The strips are now ready to take to your venue - all the person setting up needs to do is remove the protective strip from the sticky tape, wrap around the napkins and secure.