Wedding Theme Shape Place Cards

One of the most fun crafts I ever did - even though it was very simplistic - was to take pipe cleaners and turn them into interesting shapes. One way I found to do that is to use images from a coloring book, calendar, or other source. Coloring books pictures, in particular, are very simplistic. Place the pipe cleaner on the image and bend it to create that particular shape. It was easy to make lions, tigers, puppies, flowers, lighthouses, and much more. My kids and I did it for hours and made some really fun shapes. But what do you do with the shapes? Well, you can stick them to a child's bedroom wall, make a tiny shape and hang it on a key ring, and, if you're preparing to decorate for a wedding reception, turn them into beautiful place markers.

Use metallic pipe cleaners to make the shapes. Choose an image to use as a pattern or just shape the pipe cleaner yourself. Let's say you're going to make a heart. Make the heart shape with one pipe cleaner. Choose red and white, gold, silver, or other colors of beads to slide onto the pipe cleaner. For some people, it's much easier to slide the beads onto the straight pipe cleaner, and then bend it into a heart shape.

Use the original heart shape of the pipe cleaner to draw a heart onto a piece of cardstock or even scrapbook paper. Write the name of a guest on the paper heart. After the beads are on the heart shape, apply glue to the backside of the beaded heart, and lay it on the paper heart. These place cards are cheap but gorgeous.

Although a heart shape is suitable for nearly any wedding there are many other shapes you can create. Shape the pipe cleaner into a fish, a lighthouse, a star, a flower, or another shape. Create the same shape on the chosen paper, write the name of the guest, and glue the shape to the paper.

Don't have any beads? Create beautiful shapes with the name card attached by braiding three metallic pipe cleaners together. Shape these the way you want then glue the ends together neatly. Glue the shape to the place card of the paper shape to finish. These can be embellished by gluing on cheap but beautiful rhinestones or even tiny shells.

Pipe cleaners are especially cheap when you purchase them at a dollar store. Use them to make any number of shapes which go along with your particular wedding theme. You'll love these place cards which are cheap but look lovely.