Category Archives: Entertaining

DIY – Seating Card Napkin Wraps

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I promised when I posted about the menu’s that I would post the napkin wraps.  I couldn’t use the original graphics since they aren’t mine to share, but I was able to put together something similar.  Hopefully it will help someone else looking for a quick and economical way to do seating cards.

(source: Climie+Co, blurred names by me)

Tools Needed:

Supplies Needed:

  • 8.5 x 11 paper of choice – I used Luxe White text weight from PaperSource but the thinner variety of watercolor paper also works well
  • Double Sided Table or glue dots
  • Folded (in 1/4 fashion) Napkins to Wrap

Instructions:

  1. Download the Napkin Wrap template and customize with your guest’s names.  You can also change the blue flowers to your own graphic.  I used them again for a house warming party with cute little houses.
  2. Do a test print to ensure you have your printer settings correct on regular paper.  I can’t stress this enough.  Every printer is different so it’s easier to test on regular paper and adjust until you have it aligned, etc.
  3. Print out your napkin wraps onto your paper.
  4. Using the light grey lines that seperate the areas as a guide, carefully cut out your wraps.  I found it easier to cut one page at a time, which did take a bit longer…however I did this part of the process while watching a movie so it didn’t seem as lengthy. 🙂

Now it’s time to wrap your napkins.  Prefold your napkins with a pocket (if desired) in the 1/4 size.  Basically this means folded in half then folded in half again.

  1. Using a napkin as your template place a wrap and center it over where you would like them to line up.  Turn the set over and make small pencil marks on the back of the wrap at the edges of the napkin.
  2. Use this wrap as your template to score the wraps where they will fold over the edge of the napkins.  This is optional but I found it MUCH easier to work with the scored wraps.  I used post-it-notes to mark the lines and create a template of sorts with my ScorPal to quickly score all 100 of my wraps (10 minutes max)
  3. Now get to wrapping….line up the wrap and use a small piece of double sided tape to hold the pieces together in the back.
  4. Insert the Menu and you are finished!
  5. I then used lunch sized paper bags to bag up the napkin sets for each table and handed them over to my DOC to place on the tables.


    (source: personal photos)

If you have any questions leave me a comment or an email!

* flower graphics created with free Photoshop brushes from http://www.freevectordownload.com

DIY – Wedding Menus

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While menus weren’t a must have for our wedding, I think having them gave the table-scape a little “something, something” tied in with the napkins.  Plus since we did a buffet it gave everyone an idea of what to expect when their table was dismissed to be served.  I created our menu template using good ole Microsoft Word with Feel Script font (but used a free substitute on the templates below).  Other than cutting the paper they were one of the easiest DIY projects I completed for the wedding.

Blue Napkins
(photo by Climie+Co, name blurring my me)

Tools Needed:

Supplies Needed:

  • 8.5 x 11 inches Ivory or White Cardstock – 1 sheet makes 3 menus  (I used cover stock from PaperSource in Luxe White but Cold Press watercolor paper would work well also)

Instructions:

  • If you don’t already have it loaded on your computer, download and install the font of your choice.  This project uses Copperplate Gothic (which came with MS Word) and Monterey-BT.
  • Download the Menu Template from above and update to your menu items of choice.    Verify that the paper size is set to a custom size with a width of 3.66 inches and a height of 8.5 inches.
  • Cut your standard sized paper into 3 menu sized pieces*.  Each menu is setup to be 3.66 inches wide, so a 1/3 of a standard sheet of paper’s width if in landscape mode.  Using your paper cutter cut each sheet into 3 equal pieces.  To make this process less tedious I constructed a “guard” of sorts using a post-it note placed in the correct cutting position.  Then I could just line my paper up against it’s edge and make a consistent sized cut each time.  In retrospect it would have been even easier if I’d used a piece of heavier cardstock taped to my cutting deck so I have more of a solid edge to line up against.  With my cutter and this easier method of alignment, I could easily cut through 2 pieces of coverstock at a time.

  • Load the menu paper into your printer and print only 2 or 3 menus to start with to ensure everything is working correctly.
  • Print your menus out in smaller sized groups to verify consistency in the printer feed. I did groups of 20 which worked well with my HP Deskjet D4160.

  • Have a glass to wine to celebrate a quick and painless DIY project.
  • Be sure to take a photo of the finished product and email it to me!  I love detail photos!!

*Because my printer works well with custom sized paper I cut my paper into the correct menu sized pieces before printing.  This meant not having to use a more time consuming program like Adobe Illustrator to create cut marks and spaces between each menu to allow for cutting, etc.  It also meant that once the printing was finished so were the menus.  I would suggest cutting a regular piece of copy paper into the correct size and verify your printer can handle the custom size before precutting all your paper.

**If you have hundreds of menus to create you could easily take your paper to Kinko’s or some similar place to have it precut.  You would need to pay for 2 cuts, so typically less than $4.00.