How to make charming Christmas place cards

Marie-Claire Whelan is the founder of Calligraphy by MCW, providing custom calligraphy for weddings and events as well as a range of greeting cards and wall art. She hosts modern calligraphy workshops for groups and individuals. Here she demonstrates a guide to creating beautiful place cards using a faux calligraphy technique which imitates traditional calligraphy but is created using a regular marker or pen – foregoing the need for any specialist equipment.

Equipment

A pen or marker – a Sharpie or paint/chalk marker. Metallics and Christmas colours add a festive touch
Place cards or paper/card and a scissors/craft knife
Pencil and ruler (optional)

Before you start

If you don’t have place cards, you can cut down any piece of card to your desired size or shape. You can also use baubles, leaves, wooden slabs etc when presenting your place card – these can also double up as little take-home gifts for your guests.

Method

1. You can use a pencil and ruler to draft the names to ensure that they are centred on the place card, or if you want to keep it fun and creative, just go freehand. When that is done, use your pen to write the name in cursive-style writing. Make sure to leave a nice amount of space between the letters and keep any loops in your letters (in h, g, etc) wider than usual.

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2. Next, you will thicken the downstrokes on your letters by creating duplicate strokes parallel to your original downstrokes. Downstrokes are when you write in a downwards direction on the page with your pen. Just trace over the letter again to make a note of the downstrokes in pencil. Make sure to add the duplicate strokes to the same side on each letter – stick to the right-hand side as it's the most natural.

3. You will now use your pen to fill in the little space created by the duplicate strokes. Once you have done this, you will see the contrasting thick and thin strokes that resemble traditional pointed pen calligraphy.

Marie-Claire’s top tip

A piece of ribbon or twine along with a sprig or bundle of herbs, dried flowers or fresh blooms will dress up a simple place card and add a nice aromatic touch.