Rustic Place Card Holders

I came across a beautiful picture of stick place card holders on Pinterest and just had to make them myself.  I happen to prefer my ragged edge to Martha Stewart's gilded one, thank you.  I did use a jig saw to trim the ends of some of my branches, but I think the ones I left "raw" were perfectly nice, too.  I also will share with you my secret weapon: little twigs.  I used them where necessary to prop up the place card holders when they were a bit wonky.

Supplies

• 2 slim branches or thick twigs per holder, plus small twigs to use for adjusting
• Go for branches with lots of personality!  Interesting bark, texture, or color make each one really special.
• 1 spring of pine needles per holder
• Parchment paper
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Garden shears or another tool to trim ends of holders, if desired

Directions

1. Print out or write out each guest's name on a 3" x 2" piece of parchment paper.  Tear edges to be ragged.
2. Trim branches down to even sets of 2.  No branches should be smaller than 4" long, and probably no longer than 7".
3. Slip place card between two branches, flip holder over, and hot glue the seam between the branches, preferably with a bit of the parchment paper as well.  Tilt on side to dry.
4. When dry, add a dab of glue to the base of the pine sprig and nestle in next to place card.
5. If necessary, hot glue small twigs to base of holders to prop them up nicely so you can read guests' names.