Thanksgiving Place-cards

I have the best husband and 14 year old son.  They new that I was a little overwhelmed with working full time and planning a Thanksgiving dinner.  I came home today, and they had cleaned the house from top to bottom!  That gave me time to work on place-cards for our Thanksgiving table.

I wanted my place-cards to be pretty natural/rustic looking.  So I started with a large dowel.

Originally, I had wanted to use a branch that was about 2" in diameter but the men in my family kept forgetting to bring a branch home from our property up north.  The dowel worked great as a substitute.

My 14 year old cut the dowel into 1/4" pieces at a 45 degree angle.

Next, I cut pieces of off white paper into rectangles approximately 1" x 2".

To make the paper look a bit weathered, I used a lighter to burn the edges.  I had to do this in the garage because in the house.....we have very sensitive fire alarms!

Next, I burned the edges of the cut dowel pieces.

Here are my "burned" dowel and paper pieces.

I used a brown marker to write each guest's name on the off white little pieces of paper.

From Michael's, I purchased a light brown piece of paper that looks a bit like bark.  I cut this paper a little larger than the off white pieces.

Then I glued the name pieces to the brown pieces.

We have a few guests coming for Thanksgiving!

Next, I used a hot glue gun to adhere the pinecone to the dowel piece.

With a little more hot glue, I added the pieces of paper with each name of our guests.

Here is how the finished product looks.

Can't wait to get the table set!!

"For what I have received may the lord make me truly thankful.  And more truly for what I have not received."  -Storm Jameson