Thanksgiving Place Cards: Free Printable

My sister-in-law is a saint. Every year she volunteers to have her house inundated with crawling babies, squealing children, somewhat broody tweens, hard-at-work moms, and hungry dads so that we can all be together for Thanksgiving dinner!

And every year she seems to easily and seamlessly put together a beautiful tablescape for us to enjoy as we sit to break bread and talk turkey (pun intended). She has a knack for arranging centerpieces. She’s so creative with her materials and layout. It makes everything feel so much more festive as we gather together and give thanks for the day.

After each Thanksgiving dinner, I come away wishing I could help her more in some way (besides making a bunch of pies). At the same time, I feel the need to stay back and just let her work her magic. And then this year it hit me. I decided to create some Thanksgiving place cards.

My oldest daughter Hailey has made them once or twice in years past and I’ll admit it’s not only the younger kids who get excited about seeing their name on a special card and in a special place just for them on Thanksgiving day.

I had a lot of fun creating these on the computer. And I’m actually pretty excited about how they turned out.

I love the simplicity of these cards. I think it makes them very versatile. They’ll work with a fancy table complete with goblets, china, and swan-folded napkins on down to a simple plastic tablecloth and paper plates (nothing wrong with that – I’ve done it before) and everything in between!

I can’t wait for you to try them out!

Printable

Here are just a couple little tips to help you out with your printable.

You’ll notice there are four place cards per page. Once they’re printed you can easily write the names of everyone coming to dinner. My daughter loves writing personalized notes on the inside portion of the folded part for family members. You could even leave the name places blank if your friends and family prefer to choose their seats and you just want to leave a little note letting them know you care.

Helpful hint: Because everyone has different printers and settings it’s hard to make something like this that will print out in the right dimensions universally for everyone’s printer. While I have done everything I can to ensure that it will print the right size no matter what you print on or where you print from, the best way to get this one right is to turn on your borderless printing. 

Typically most printers automatically leave a little white border around all four edges of the paper. Most of the time it’s not even noticeable. This is the way it’s supposed to be. For optimal printing of these Thanksgiving place cards, you do not want that white border. There is a setting option when you click printer where you can turn on borderless printing. Just click that and you’re good to go. If you forget it most likely won’t be a problem. You’ll still get the entire picture of the four cards. Depending on your settings it just might throw the centering off a bit.

I recommend printing on cardstock. It’s nice and sturdy and will stand up much better than regular paper.

Once your place cards are printed it’s easy to use a paper cutter to line it up and cut down the middle vertically and horizontally. Write your names and fold each card in half. I used an orange sharpie and just wrote in my normal print. It’s perfectly fine but after doing that I’ve vowed that I’m going to follow through with my goal to learn calligraphy. Next year the names of my family members will be a little fancier than this year.

Finally, add your cards to your place settings!

I hope you enjoy these Thanksgiving place cards that will add just a touch of elegance to your Thanksgiving dinner table. Click here to grab them.

You can find a matching printable to use as a centerpiece or decoration elsewhere in your house here.

So, have you ever used place cards for Thanksgiving dinner before? Let me know in the comments below if you have and what you think of these. And let me know if you have any other ideas for printables you’d like to see on our site!

~Kimberly