Sep 16, 2009

DIY: Menu Cards

There’s a fine line between creative & crafty… you can have great ideas but not necessarily the fine motor skills (or patience) to cut & paste them together. I fall pretty firmly in the former category – while I enjoy flipping through a Martha Stewart tutorial, there’s no way in hell I could ever get mine to look like hers.

So when it comes to decorating for a party I tend to keep things pretty simple – but I still want it to feel special. Even if you have no art skills whatsoever you can do these great menu cards.

Image courtesy of the now defunct Blueprint Magazine. 
They got fancy with the little pencils - great idea if you need to keep everybody busy while you're finishing up in the kitchen. 
Include a questionnaire, brain teaser or trivia quiz...

Simply type up what you’re serving, pick a font and color you like and print them out on heavy card stock. Then just trim them down and place one at each place setting.

Don’t want to include the menu? Try a simple holiday greeting, a quote, or just the reason you’re all together. I did the ones below for a friend’s birthday dinner at a restaurant. I just showed up a few minutes early, put out the cards, some simple flowers and small boxes of treats as party favors… it was a subtle and sophisticated way to make our table special - without the cheesy party store banners or balloons.


Got more skills? Turn it up with clip art, illustrations or your own masterpiece! Photos would be super cute – add pictures of your friends and use them as place cards to let everyone know where they should sit (“Find your face & sit down”…or, you know, something like that).

No comments: