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DIY Clothespin Place Card Holders for a Rustic Vintage Wedding

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

On June 20th, 2015, my sister Lisbeth married the love of her life, Ransom, and it was one of the most joy-filled weddings I’ve ever witnessed.

Lisbeth & Ransom's Rustic Vintage Wedding!
Photo by Stacy Salvatori Photography
Sisters! The bride & C.O.B. {Chief of Bridesmaids} being hams!
Photo by Stacy Salvatori Photography

I had the honor of being the matron of honor, or chief of bridesmaids as I dubbed myself.  (Because I wasn’t digging the correlation between “matron” and “matronly.”)  And one of the gifts I decided to give my sister was the gift of decor–more specifically, taking the lead on planning and DIY-ing her reception decor.  Of course, I was like a pig in mud with this task.  {Grin.}

We had a tight budget we needed to stick to, and of course, I gave myself the added challenge of not only sticking the budget, but coming in under budget.

{Spoiler alert: we succeeded!}

And I have to say, the place cards were one area in particular where we saved money, but didn’t scrimp on beauty.

Now, in truth, I was initially concerned that paper flags clipped in stained clothespins might be too simple.

But when I walked by the final display at the reception venue and saw the place cards resting within old drawers brimming with baby’s breath, well, I was confident we had hit the mark!

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!
Photo by Stacy Salvatori Photography

We all know how expensive weddings can get…so if you’re looking for an affordable project that is rich with whimsy, well then, this is it!

The price breakdown ended up being 26 cents per place-card-clothespin-combo, and a total of $32 for all 120 that we made.  And while we embraced a rustic vintage vibe with this DIY project, you could easily adapt the look of the clothespins, the flowers, and the display drawers to fit any color scheme or style.

Naturally, I’m going to show you how we achieved this awesome-blossom look!  Let’s dive in to supplies first and then the step by step tutorial.

Supplies

Tutorial

Phase 1: Clothespin Staining

If you’re vibin’ on the vintage look of stained clothespins like I was, allow me to share the really clever system Mark developed for staining them. I think you will marvel at the efficiency (just as I did!).

Step 1. Prep your work area.

First things first, make sure you have some really great air ventilation whenever you’re working with stain or poly. Have some fans running and/or windows open, and you can even wear a valved respirator if the fumes bother you. I recommend wearing disposable gloves for this step as you’ll see things get rather messy. Also, either work on a surface you don’t mind getting covered in stain–or protect your tabletop with a plastic tablecloth or tarp.

Step 2. Dip your clothespins in wood stain.

The wooden clothespins we purchased were clipped onto a piece of cardstock in groups of ten. If your clothespins aren’t packaged similarly, you can easily create the same effect with a strip of cardstock.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems!

Mark simply unclipped the one clothespin on each end, giving him a place to grip, and then wearing disposable gloves, he dipped them into a shallow bowl of stain–first one side, then the other.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

Step 3. Remove excess stain with either the wipe-away method or drip-dry method.

There were two different “looks” we played around with, and I have photos of each of them to help you in deciding which to go for.

The first, is the classic wipe-away method, where you use a rag to gently wipe away the stain you just applied.  This will lead to a lighter stain on the wood, and one in which you can more easily see the wood grain.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Here's the wipe-away method for staining them....

The second is the drip-dry method, which you simply give the clothespins a few good hard shakes downward atop a rag and remove the excess drips of stain, but otherwise, you leave a thick coating of the stain on the clothespins as they dry.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Here's the drip-dry method for staining them....

Here’s a comparison of the two methods as the clothespins were drying. I think in the end, I really liked the drip-dry method, though a variety is great. And once they both fully dried, they looked more similar than you might think.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Here's a comparison of the wipe-away method and the drip-dry method for staining them...a variety is great!

Step 4. Allow the stained clothespins ample dry time.

Mark had set up a cardboard box as his drying station, and placed the stained clothespins upright to dry.  Every 10 – 20 minutes or so, he’d move the sets of clothespins to a new spot, just to prevent them from sticking to the box where small pools of stain began to form.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Dry time....

Because the Minwax PolyShades Stain we chose included polyurethane in it, it vastly increased the dry time needed, and the clothespins had a slightly tacky feel to them once they dried. But that was no problem at all considering their sole purpose was to clip a paper flag and look purdy.

MINWAX PolyShades Stain - - perfect for staining and sealing wooden clothespin place card holders for a Rustic Vintage Wedding!

And in case you’re wondering if the cardstock was permanently stuck to the inside of the clothespins after they dried (since I was worried about that myself), there was minimal sticking, and they were quite easy to unclip. Harrah!

Phase 2: Paper Flag Printing & Cutting

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Here was the Wisteria Purple Cardstock we used...even prettier in person if you can believe it.

First, an adaptation for those without a digital craft-cutter:

After selecting a beautiful shade of wisteria purple for the 100# cardstock we ordered, I designed a paper flag cut-out in Silhouette Studio software. For the text, I chose the whimsical font, VeryBerry. And then, the fun little flourish before the table number is actually the ) character from the font, Rushistly Extra Ornaments.

FREE Silhouette Cut File for Place Card Flags, perfect for clipping into some rustic vintage clothespins!

Then, I printed out my pages on my home printer in order to cut them on my Silhouette Cameo machine.

However, you could very easily create a similar look using old-fashioned scissors or better yet, a paper cutter like this one.

If you do go the paper-cutter route, I would just recommend typing up your text in a fresh Word document so that there is no space between the cards to minimize cut lines. You could also simplify the design by eliminating the flag end, or you might be able to find a square punch that allows you to easily create that same look.

Free Cut File

Second, those of you with a Silhouette machine of your own…

I’d love to share with you the cut file I designed for the place cards for FREE to make your lives easier. You can sign up to download your free cut file using the nifty form below or by clicking HERE. {Fine print: this design is for personal use only and is not to be used for commercial purposes. Thanks!}

If you’d like to use the same fonts I did, you’ll want to download VeryBerry and Rushistly Extra Ornaments.  They are in size 15.7 and 20.2.  I also created separate documents for each page of place cards I cut in the rare event that we would need to make a last minute edit.  With each page holding 12 different place cards, I was able to complete this project in only 10 sheets.

Note: we decided to put couples (married and unmarried) together on the same place card to minimize the number of clothespins we laid out, but that decision is entirely up to you!

And if you need a quick primer on how to complete a print-and-cut project on your Silhouette machine, you can refer to this post of mine.

FREE Silhouette Cut File for Place Card Flags, perfect for clipping into some rustic vintage clothespins!

Phase 3: Setting up your display

In terms of displaying these puppies, I was inspired by this beautiful image I found of some place cards displayed atop baby’s breath in an old wooden drawer. How divine!

The inspiration for our Rustic Vintage Display of the Clothespin Place Card Holders...
Photo by Lisa Hessel Photography

And when one of Lisbeth’s sweet bridesmaids, Anne, sent me a photo of a vintage-fabulous piece of furniture from her home, I knew its shallow drawers would be the perfect means by which to display our clothespinned place cards.

The vintage drawers that would be the perfect display for our rustic wedding place cards and their clothespin holders!

When setting up the reception venue the day before the wedding, we had a fantastic team bridesmaids volunteer to help complete the place card display. They alphabetized the place cards, clipped them into clothespins, and did some headache-inducing math to figure out how many rows of place cards we’d have per drawer.

Then, before setting them up, we added in a few layers of baby’s breath, which Lisbeth’s fabulous florist Alicia secured for us.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

I think I was in a tizzy of hunting down scissors with arms full of burlap when I walked past the place card table and stopped in my tracks. Something about the four different elements of the stained clothespins and the wisteria purple flags and the untamed baby’s breath and the sturdy wooden drawers just worked.  Beautifully.

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!
Photo by Stacy Salvatori Photography

And here they are in action, at their designated spot on the table, looking about as serene as clothespinned place cards can look!

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

So, beauty on a budget is possible, friends.

As if we had any doubt….  {Smile.}

DIY Rustic Vintage Clothespin Place Card Holders | Love that can save on cost, but not scrimp on beauty with these gems! Step by step photo tutorial includes instructions on the easy method of staining the clothespins and how to design and cut the place card flags. Pop 'em in a vintage drawer with baby's breath and voila! Instant wedding whimsy!

Rustic Vintage Wedding Series

Here are the full collection of rustic vintage wedding tutorials for you to peruse.  I hope they spark some creative inspiration for you, dear reader.

And if you’re eager to talk a walk down memory lane and explore the D.I.Y. elements from our Wedding by the Sea six years ago, you can do some time-traveling HERE.

Enjoy!

*Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase after clicking through, The Thinking Closet may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for helping to support this site!

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9 Comments

  1. I just revisited this to refresh my memory. You put so much effort into this one aspect…in addition to all of your other efforts. Just babies-breathtakingly lovely!

  2. Lauren — I’ve gotten behind in my blog reading and had to laugh when I saw this post in today’s email from you. (I know, I know — it wasn’t even the feature post! But it does tell you that I read to the end of your email).

    The reason I laughed is I was literally just at Michael’s (like 20 minutes ago) perusing the clothespins with a kernel of an idea in mind and had noticed all the stained clothespins and thought, hmmmm, is that a thing now???? Yours are much prettier than the ones I saw there — tell Mark he did a great job!

    And those drawers???? I am seriously in love with that piece of furniture. Would the bridesmaid notice if it suddenly went missing from her house? I mean, it’s meant to store my paper stash, right?

    1. Thank you for reading my email so fully and for clicking through, friend! That’s too funny that you just saw a bunch of stained clothespins at Michael’s! Ha ha, maybe it IS a thing. #greatminds. Will pass your warm words onto Mark.

      And yes, I’m right there with you with your obsession over the green-drawered-wonder. Such a gem! And yes, it would be perfect for paper storage. Good thinking!

  3. The clothes pins are so cute!!! Every spring our ladies ministry does a ladies luncheon. These will make great place card holders for my table. Thanks for sharing!!

  4. Oh my goodness, love these! I love how the simple clothespin can be dressed up for special occasions. 🙂 (And the drawers you displayed them in?! How perfect!) Thanks so much for sharing this, Lauren! Have a great weekend!

    1. Ha ha. It made me smile to think of these little clothespins all dressed up like girls in their Sunday best! Love me some personification. And thanks for stopping by to check it out, Jennie!

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