For her wedding, Jennifer Hoverson Jahnke, co-owner of Purl and Purl Patchwork in New York City, chose 20 coordinating fabrics to fashion hand-sewn napkins. Graphic designer Brooke Reynolds used those fabrics to construct corresponding escort cards. Here, Brooke shows us how she makes them, and shares her template so you can make them yourself. Used with permission by Brooke Reynolds for Inchmark.

Tools and Materials
Template (plain or formatted)
Medium- to heavy-weight paper
Craft knife
Metal straight edge
Cutting mat
Glue (spray adhesive or glue stick)
1 1/2-inch circle craft punch
Fabric swatches (cut to 1 3/4-inch squares)
Bone folder
1/8-inch hole punch
Corner rounding craft punch

How-To
If you want your calligrapher to write the names and table numbers, use the plain template, and discuss with her whether she'd prefer to write the names in position on full-size sheets, or on the tags after they're constructed; print out as many sheets as you need. To type the names in yourself, open the template, and add the names and table numbers of your first five guests, and print out. Repeat for your entire guest list, working in batches of five.

1. Use the straight edge and the craft knife to cut out the cards using the guides on the template. (Do not cut all the way to the edges of the paper top to bottom; you want to stop shy of the edges so you keep the border and your crop marks intact until you've finished all the cuts.) Cut the top and bottom horizontal lines first, and then the vertical lines.

2. On each card, punch out the 1 1/2-inch circle, as marked on the template. (Turn the punch upside down so you can see the markings through the hole, so you will know exactly how to line it up; be sure to position carefully so you cut away all traces of the marking.)

3. Apply glue to the entire back of the card, taking care to coat it smoothly along the edges. Place your fabric swatch, wrong side up, on the back of the glued surface to completely cover the punched-out circle.

4. Fold the card in half end to end, sandwiching the fabric. (The right side of the fabric should show through the punched circle.) Run the bone folder along the fold to create a sharp crease, and burnish or rub the entire card so it sticks well.

5. Punch a 1/8-inch hole where marked on template (small circle). Round corners with a corner craft punch, and trim excess threads from fabric swatch, if necessary.

6. Hang each finished card over a ball-head pin on your seating-card display.