Pop-Up Place Cards

Place Cards for Any Occasion

Holiday Place Card Ideas

How about a craft for making place cards for a dinner table for holidays? Especially Christmas.

Janet

Thank you for the suggestion.

I love to make place cards as gifts or for dinner parties and I've designed a gazillion of them.

However to my surprise, when your question prompted me to search The Artful Crafter for place card tutorials, I discovered that I have posted only a few place card articles!

Here are the fall and winter place card articles already on our website:

• Goofy Turkey Place Cards;
• Golden Leaves of Autumn Place Cards; and
• An article on how to make Della Robia Wine Glass Collars which can also serve as fall or Thanksgiving place cards.

So I spent the rest of the day creating pop-up place cards - my favorite type - just for you ;-)

How to Make Holiday Pop-Up Place Cards

Pop-up place cards are visually appealing and very easy to make.

Make some cute pop-up place cards for your next sit down dinner.

Here are a few fall and Christmas pop-up place cards I've done.

They always get a good reaction. You know, "Where did you get these darling place cards? Did you really make them yourself?! ..."

They measure 4 ¼ wide by 4 inches tall before folding. You get four to a page.

Once your design is ready, the file can be saved for later.

I have a whole library of place cards for every occasion. I just look for an appropriate design; open the file, print, cut and score.

They're quicker to make than it is to run to a stationary store at the last minute. A pack of twelve also makes a great inexpensive hostess gifts.

Pop-Up Place Card Materials

• Cardstock - about 225 g/m² or 80 lbs. - each sheet makes 4 place cards. See Choosing the Right Paper for your Craft Project.
• Computer clipart - mine were found in Print Shop.
• Paper cutter or scissors
• Pencil and ruler
• Craft knife
• Scoring tool - I‘m using a Mini Scor-it Board here.

Making the Place Cards

Open a blank 8 ½ by 11-inch page (portrait orientation) in your graphic or card making program.

Set up guidelines or draw lines to frame the place cards. You want two cards across which are 4 ¼ inches wide and two cards down which are 4 inches tall.

Choose or scan in the clipart of your choice. Size and position it to the left of a place card such that the part you want to pop up starts 2 inches up from the bottom.

You can set a guideline at 2 inches to help you position the graphic.

Copy the clipart three times and move each image into place on the other three place cards.

Use paper cutter or ruler and scissors to cut the four cards apart.

Use a pencil to mark a tiny dot at 2 inches on each side of the clipart image.

In my example, I want Tom Turkey's head and the chair back to pop off the page while his finger - er claw - will appear to point to the dinner guest's name.

Use a sharp craft knife and cutting board to cut around the portion of the clipart which will pop up.

You'll find tips on scoring cardstock in this article about Paper Scoring Methods.

If using a Scor-it Board, position the Stop Guide at the two-inch mark for foolproof positioning every time.

Lay each card face down against the Stop Guide. Be sure the orientation is correct or you will end up with a card which folds the wrong way. Been there; done that ;-)

Use the attached stylus to score from the top edge to the cut and from the bottom of the cut to the bottom edge.

That is, do not score across the piece that will pop up.

Score remaining cards.

Fold cards. Write in your guests names and set your table.

Optional: If your guest list is already set, you may type their names during the design phase using a computer font to match the tone of your card and the occasion.