How to make botanical place cards

Sharing food and drink is one of the oldest rituals in the world and what better way to celebrate my 60th birthday 

than to share a cup of tea with my besties?

 I set about making some place cards for my birthday tea celebration over at Southern Cup of Tea 

out of the left over Botanical paper I had on hand which I had created with my 

Arnold Grummer Papermaking kit and the Angel Wings: Multi Color Mix .

Using my Tea bag stencil template, I traced and cut them out.

Tip:

Be prepared for beautiful albeit annoying flaws when writing on botanical paper.

For numbers 1 and 2 the fix is simple. You just need to cut out extra "tags" to glue on.

1. This beautiful kaleidoscope of flowers would just overwhelm the text.

2. Sometimes a deckled edge just doesn't work, even as much as I love them and in this case it ends up

 looking like an corner that got torn off.

3. No going back from this one really when a dark piece lands smack in the middle, so I just went ahead and wrote on it but truthfully it will get put back into the  ongoing pile of scraps to recycle that I keep.

Once they were all cut out I began decorating them which was the most fun!

My friends are kinda like the botanical paper I made,

 full of beauty and lots of fun to have around. 

 Etiquette may seem like something of a lost art in modern society, but there are still occasions in which the old-school social graces are necessary. The place card itself can vary in terms of style and quality, and is typically used for large dining scenarios such as a wedding where a specific seating arrangement has been made and guests must be seated in particular spots. 

So, while they weren't really necessary to have in my case, they sure were fun to make!