If you're using place cards at your dinner table this holiday, maybe consider using something that's already on the table as a holder: the tines of each setting's fork. I found this idea when planning for my wedding and put it right to use as it reduces clutter at the table and can save a lot of time and money for more important elements of your party...
When I realized the economy embodied in this idea, I felt a little silly for having considered anything else: putting a cork with a slit in it at each setting, tying each card to a piece of fruit, or buying an off-the-shelf "place card holder", never to be used again.
With the fork tine idea, cards are placed as if you pranced around the table effortlessly tucking each card into place with a skip in your step and a laugh in your heart. I guess what I'm trying to say is the fork idea is not trying too hard, but it does the job with spare elegance. Photo: Peggy Bair
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what a cute idea!
This is lovely. I'm doing this at my next shindig.
love this!
Germophobes are gonna hate this. I can't explain why, but it just set off my ick alarm. Something about paper being handled by people and then people putting their fingers all over the tines of the fork.... look, I know it's not rational, and it truly is a visually cute idea, but it just gave me the icks.
that's not germophobia, it's scientific reality. It's not fair to put something in someone else's clean fork.
Germophobia:
Oh Brother...
"It's not fair to put something in someone else's clean fork."
If you're dining at someone else's home, how do you know if the fork (or plates...or glasses..) are clean? How could you be sure that everyone else meets your standards for cleanliness?
Restaurants have sanitation standards to meet but private homes don't. I guess germaphobes have a tough time accepting dinner party invitations. Maybe they are happier hosting?
I think this is a really cute idea.
Another one I liked was the one where they used gold pen to put names on pomegranates. But a pomegranate is more expensive than most card holders.
There is something so refreshing in this simplicity.
at my mother-in-laws holiday get-togethers, place cards are folded pieces of cardstock decorated by the grandkids with everyones name. And she re-uses the same ones year after year. When those kids are teenagers, their childhood artwork will still be the placecard....
... perhaps I should suggest she have them laminated...