Quick and Easy Invites

Recently, my daughter celebrated her third birthday. As I set out to plan the event, I was less than enthused by the invitation choices. Part of the problem was that she wasn’t really into anything in particular. Not like my son, who had a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday two years in a row. So I passed up the princess invites, the cartoon invites and boring old balloon invites and decided to look elsewhere. I found a plethora of adorableness in catalogues and online but they came at a pretty hefty price. I love my daughter, but the chances were good that she wasn’t even going to remember this party and I wasn’t about to drop a bundle on some fancy invitations. No matter how cute they were.

So I brainstormed. I Googled. I sought wisdom from some of my favorite crafty bloggers. Then I found the idea. A conglomeration of inspiration from other people on the internet led me to create my own. I mean, I’m the crafty one, right? While I didn’t really want to hand make a dozen or so paper invites, I opted to design something on my computer.

With the help of Photoshop and some downloaded goodies from the internet, I whipped up this little ditty in about an hour. Then I uploaded it to my favorite photo processing center and had them printed as 4×6 photos at 14 cents each. I also designed some coordinating tags for the goodie bags and had them printed three to a page (a page being a 4×6 photo). I cut them apart and stapled them to the colorful bags. The compliments I received on these invites definitely proved I’d made the right decision by creating my own.

Do you have a child’s birthday coming up? Or a baby shower, maybe? Try designing your own invites on your computer. There are so many affordable photo editing programs to choose from, any one of which is capable of this simple project.

Happy crafting!

 

For the past six and a half years, Rachelle has been living and freezing in Anchorage, Alaska. Born and raised in Carnation, Washington, she has always had a passion for all things creative. Now a stay at home mom of three little darlings, Rachelle whiles away her day playing peekaboo, changing diapers and scrapbooking. Her love of the craft has turned her laundry room into the craft room of her dreams, sent her on whirlwind weekend scrapbooking conventions in Seattle, created a mountain of scrapbooks (none of them finished!) and convinced her husband that it should, in fact, be called “expensive-booking.” Aside from that addiction, I mean hobby, Rachelle also makes cards, decorates and redecorates her house, sews, knits and dreams of being Martha Stewart.