For Christmas this year, my dinner table will be filled with festive, red and white decorations. I wanted to add name cards to each place setting, and was on the hunt for inspiration for making my own place card holders. When Jo offered me some leftover wooden snowmen from another project, I knew I'd found the perfect starting point.

I used unfinished wood peg doll snowmen that were 2-5/8" tall.

For the snowmen to hold a name card, they needed a slit cut in the top of each one. I knew there was no way I could cut a straight line while holding it in my hand, so I grabbed my mitre box and a C-clamp. I lined the snowman up so that the pre-defined straight cut guide was centered on his hat, and clamped it to hold him steady.

Then I put the end of the saw in the cut guide to hold it steady and straight, and carefully cut into the hat.

Once I had the cut started, I was able to pull the saw up out of the mitre box and level it out so I had a nice even cut about 1/4" deep.

With the cutting done, it was time to paint! I painted the bodies with white, of course.

Because I wanted to keep these clean and modern, the only other thing I painted was the hat, which I made black.

For the name cards, I created a simple snowflake design in red and white, and I'm happy to share it with you! If you want to write the names on by hand, you can download my simple ready-to-print PDF version. If, however, you want to personalize your name cards on the computer before printing, download my customizable DOCX version to edit in Microsoft Word/Office first. Both versions include a solid pattern sheet for printing on the back, too.

I printed my customized name cards onto white cardstock, then printed the pattern on the back so they would be pretty on both sides. Then I cut them out with scissors.

I tucked the cards into the slot in the hats, and they were ready to go!

I can't get over how adorable these are, especially since they were so easy to make. They are the perfect festive touch to my red-and-white Christmas dinner table place settings.