Transcript:
Hand Beco with the happy ever, crafter. And in this video, I’m gonna walk. You step-by-step through how to create some? DIY place cards like this. Okay, so first things first I am. Not going to be teaching you actual calligraphy in this video. So if you’ve never done calligraphy before. I’ve got tons of other videos. I suggest starting with this one and then come back to this when you’re ready, but I definitely suggest that you already know calligraphy before you try and do these place cards with me in this video. I’m going to show you my five tips for centering and writing some place cards. So tip number one is to know exactly what the client wants written and in what format on their place cards. So for example, does the client want it to say, Miss? Becca cordis. Or do they want Becca cordis. Or do they want just Becca? Do they want the table number on there? Do they want a meal preference? And most importantly, what style do they want it all in so for this video? I’m gonna be showing you the most common style that I ever get asked, asked for and one of the most common styles that you’ll see especially at weddings and stuff like that. Generally, you’re gonna see the first name on the card, not always the first and last and most commonly you’re gonna see that in calligraphy and then the table number or the meal preference in block letters. So that’s what I’m going to show you In this video tip number two is to always ask for at least 20% extra blank cards, so usually the client provides the cards, especially when I’m doing jobs like this. I like to ask the client to provide it, but if I’m providing them also, obviously I’ll just order myself Extras. If the clients providing them, you definitely want to make sure they know to give you. At least 20% more than the number of guests they want written out. This is to account for the inevitable. Mistakes you’re gonna make tip. Number three is to scan your list of names beforehand and pick out who has the longest name. So I usually print my note. This was actually given to me by the client, and I know that I’m only doing first names, so I don’t need to look at the length of everybody’s first and last name. I’m just gonna use the length of the first name so really easy way to do this. You can either just eyeball it and see who has the longest one, but sometimes it’s hard to see so. I kind of just draw a line at the everybody’s first name, and obviously these names are in block letters, so it’s gonna be a little different in calligraphy, but it should give you a good idea, okay, and then if you if it’s not immediately obvious sometimes. I’ll even just like, take a ruler and find the longest ones and kind of see which ones stand out. So then once you have the longest name that you’re gonna start with Rigoberto and I know he’s going to be at Table six. I’m gonna put this aside and I’m gonna grab my place card, So the first thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna make sort of an example one, and that’s gonna make more sense in a minute, but basically I’m gonna take a pencil and a ruler, and I’m gonna start drawing myself some guidelines where I think they’re gonna work and I’m gonna try and write that name out and the table number just free-handed and try and make it fit on here until I’m happy with it now. Remember this one’s kind of just gonna be a guideline unless it ends up being really perfect and you can keep it, but I usually don’t worry too much about this one. I kind of just included in that 20 percent extra and know that I’ll be probably getting rid of it. So the first thing I do is I draw myself a baseline for where I think I want most of my letters to sit, so I’ll put that really lightly here, and then my X height and again, if you have never learned calligraphy, I’m not gonna get too detailed with this stuff, so you can check out my other videos for that, but I’ve got my baseline and my waistline, and so now I’m going to just try an eyeball in how big? I think that lettering should be for this to fit nicely, okay. That actually worked pretty well. I want my capital letter to be actually a little bit bigger, but I’m actually pretty happy with the way that that turned out, so oftentimes, it’ll be on erase and rewrite kind of system for a little while until you’re happy with it, but I’m pretty good with that. So now I’m gonna try and write in my table number and so for this one, if you haven’t seen my envelopes entering video, I do envelope addressing as well on that video talks about how to center or left justify right justify. That would be helpful for this, but basically, what you’re gonna do is look for the descender, So that G is sort of in the way of where I would want to put my table number. So for this name, specifically, I’m actually gonna put the table number right justified, which means I’m just gonna draw myself some guidelines here, starting from the end of that. Oh, because I want it to be lined up with the end of the name, and it’s gonna be pretty small lettering. So there we go and now I’m just gonna try and write on the native the table number, and he was at Table six. So I’m actually gonna work backwards here and again. I mentioned this in my envelope video, so he definitely checked that out. I’m gonna start with the six on this end, and then I’m gonna write table backwards. This makes makes sure that it’s right justified. Takes a little bit of practice, but once you get it, it’s actually pretty helpful with writing table numbers and addresses and stuff like that. So there we go. I forgot my name and my table number written out, and now I’m gonna go over it with my rush pen and my micro pen. So I’m using a Tumbo food or no suitcase. It’s just my favourite black brush pen, pretty small tip and then a micron size zero three. Okay, then once I have these written on, Obviously I’m going to take my eraser and erase the pencil marks gently. Obviously, if you’re using a really juicy brush pens. Sometimes it can smudge, so just make sure that it’s really dry before you do that right away. You can see that my table number smudged a little bit, but again, this is just my example because next we’re going to use this example using the longest name to make a template for the rest of your place cards and that’s tip number four, making a template. So now what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna take a piece of card stock. This is just like a Bristol board kind of card stock, and I’m gonna cut a piece of it to be the exact same size at this place card, so I’m just tracing the edge of this place card and I’ll actually make a halfway mark to for the size of this. Okay, so I’ve got my example card here, and now I’m gonna put it right beside my original, and I’m gonna use my ruler to shoot some guidelines across. Basically, I’m taking the X height of my name, so I’m gonna draw a line on basically, the base line of each all of the letters, not the descender’s not anything that’s bounced just the main base line and the waist line. It doesn’t have to be perfectly exact, but as close as you can and then the same thing for the table numbers grabbing both of those lines. And then I’m gonna put it beside my guide lines here, and I’m gonna shoot those lines across on here as well. Alright, so now I have those spaces on my guide. Line there on my template, and now I am actually gonna measure the size of this name because this is again. The longest name that we could have, and so you don’t. You know that that’s gonna be the Max line of any name on your list because this is the longest one so? I’m going to just measure that roughly and it’s about seven centimeters. First of all. You know where the middle of this card is? It’s about four in a bit so here and then. I’m gonna do seven centimeters so three and a half on either side of that, okay, and then this is essentially going to become a cut box like I’m gonna cut this out and that’s gonna be the space for all of your calligraphy names so this? I’m going to cut out in a second now. I’m going to do the same thing for the table number, except because the table number might be left-justified on some names or centered on others or right justified. I’m just gonna make that table number spacing the opening. I’m gonna make it the same size as the name. So now all I have to do is cut out these two boxes. That looks really messy right now, but it won’t matter now. I know some of you might be thinking that this seems like a lot of tedious work, but I promise you. If you make this guideline up front, especially if you’re doing a ton of place cards, it’s gonna save you so much time, so I’ve got these pieces cut out, and I know I said it was messy, but it doesn’t matter because we can just use the back so here we go. I have my outline and again. I want to mark the center line on here, so I’m gonna they’re on top, and I know a little bit, so I’m going to mark this on all of these edges. It makes it a lot easier to be able to eyeball your letters now. I have my template and it’s gonna be really, really easy to do the rest of my names, so I can just take my blank place card. Put my template / Top line it up and it’s gonna make this job way faster, and now that I can use this for all of the place cards. I can guarantee that the name sizing is gonna be really consistent. So because Rigoberto was the longest name now. I know that any name I write in that size that I used for. This one is definitely going to fit because it’s actually no matter what gonna be smaller than what I used for Rigoberto. So this is gonna make it really easy to have them be really consistent now. When you’re doing place cards like this with a template if the first name is in block letters, you’re totally like you’re totally set. You can just write your name and block letters with this template right on it. If that name is not in block letters, it’s in calligraphy, which it is for us. It makes things a little bit more challenging because you’re obviously going to have D senders and a senders and capital letters that go above and below that baseline. So what I actually like to do is I just put a little dot in each corner really, really lightly, so you can erase it after, and then I use those with a laser level, so what I mean by that is I’m gonna take my laser level and this is a Johnson, hotshot. It’s just the favorite one that I have, but you can get any laser level at any hardware store and all it does that shoots a red line across the page. I know that’s really hard to see because my video is really bright, but now that I have those dots on my place card, I can shoot my laser level right across from one dot to the other, and I have a guideline for myself. So now if I go to write the next person’s name, whose name is Rowan, our W am. I know that I can keep my lettering within or along that guideline and within this box that I’ve drawn myself with the dots so now again. I’m going to go with my pencil. Or if you’re really comfortable, you can just jump right in with your brush pen, and I’m going to write that name and one thing to note to you is I’m not drawing my waistline, but if you feel like you need it, you can absolutely draw that in with a pencil. It does make things a lot easier, okay, so. I’ve got my name written. I’m happy with that. I’m gonna erase those little dots and I can turn off my laser level because now I’m just gonna put my template back over top and put in the table number now with the name Roman. I know that I don’t have any descenders that are blocking my table number, so I’m gonna put this template back over top, and this time I’m going to try and Center the table number, so Rouen is sitting at Table three, and if we look at the word table and the number, you have one, two, three, four, five six characters so now. I’m just gonna use the center line. This red dot. I put on my template and I’m gonna. Center the word Table three on here. So again, this might take a little bit of retrying to get it perfectly centered, but I find if you start with the letters in the middle of the word and work your way out on either side, it’s easier, so I’m going to start with the B. And then when I remove the guideline, my table 3 is perfectly centered with my name. And all of these characters are the same size as that first original card. I did it for Rigoberto. So now again. Obviously just go over it with your brush, pen and your micron or whatever tools you’re using for your place cards and there you have it, Some really really consistent place cards so again you could take this template and reuse it for every single one of the place cards in your stack, and it’ll save you tons and tons of time so. I hope these tips were helpful. Good luck with your place cards. And if you also need to do envelope addressing. I have you covered. Check out this video. Because in that one, I also include a free downloadable template as well. I hope you enjoy. It definitely hit the subscribe button If you like tutorials like this because I put out two new videos every single week and I’ll see you [Music] you [Music]!