I’m a big fan of throwing fancy dinner parties. I love getting together with friends and family to celebrate, no matter what the occasion. With the holidays right around the corner, people are bound to gather around the table over a warm meal to give thanks and exchange gifts.
This is a really cute and easy way to make place settings for your guests when they come over to eat. All you need are wine corks (I bought a bag of 55 from Pottery Barn) sandpaper, a coping saw (or scroll saw if you have one) and place setting cards.
Each place setting uses one cork, so once you know how many guests you will have at your dinner party, use that number of corks.
First, take each cork, and sand down a flat surface on the cork by rubbing it up and down on sandpaper on a flat surface. Make sure you sand just enough so that there is a flat edge preventing the cork from rolling around.
When all the corks I needed were sanded, my husband stepped in and helped me with the next step. He used his scroll saw to cut about a quarter of the way into each cork to make a slit for the place card.
A scroll saw is one of the safest bench-top power saws you can use, however it is incredibly unsafe to operate with your fingers in the area of the blade. (ie: exactly what my husband did) That is why I asked my husband to the cutting since he is much more experienced than me. So please if you are inexperienced in handling power saws, do not cut the corks this way. You can slit the corks by hand using a coping saw, (a hand saw) which is available at your local hardware store for $5-$10
Lastly, get all your place cards prepped with your guests names. (I also took it one step further and put a border around the edges with a silver Sharpie).
And that is basically all you need to do! Simple right?
No matter what occasion or holiday you choose to celebrate as the temperature cools down, remember there’s always warmth when you are surrounded by the ones you love.
xo,
Maggie
