Pages

Friday, November 16, 2012

Birthday Invitations!

So I'm a little behind schedule planning Lyla's 1st birthday.  I got so involved with Thanksgiving, and Christmas, my brain just skipped right over her birthday.  Parent fail?  I think so.






Anyway, I think we're going with a purple and green theme.  I'm opting to make the invitations myself.  I had a little bit of experience doing it for our wedding and thought I'd try my hand at it again, especially since it's not like I'm making a lot of them.

What you'll need:
Note cards (Mine are 4.5" x 6.25" made by Reflections and sold at Michael's for $3.99 per 20)
The matching envelopes ($3.99 per 10, also at Michael's)
This paper punch,  $12.99 on Amazon. (Warning, this punch is much larger than it appeared on Amazon.  I would recommend this size punch if you were doing an 8.5" x 5.5" card, or even a folded card that is the 4x6 size and you decorate the front and print on the inside.  It's too big for both the words and the decoration all on this space, see the picture below so you can have an idea of just how big it punches.)  
I have this small daisy punch on order for $6.16
Clear drying craft glue (Martha Stewart brand, $2.99 for the bottle, $3.99 for the pens, all at Michael's.)
And an assortment of scrapbook card stock in colors that match your theme (I purchased a dark, medium, and light shade for each color I wanted.)

Next came printing.  With this particular card size I ran into a small snag, but eventually figured it out.  I have an Epson NX400, which has this handy little tab I can move in my paper feed so it will hold different sized paper.

Initially I designed my invite in Word, and put it on an A6 sized template.  I then ran into printing issues all over the place.  The easiest way I found to do this was to design the card on the top left of a letter sized template.  I then printed (on regular cheap paper first).  I held my card up to the design to make sure it was centered, and after I'd done any adjustments that needed doing, I used the card rather than printer paper.  Worked like a charm!  I put all my text in using text boxes with no fill and no border so I could easily center things without having to deal with aligning individual text.  It made life much easier.

So, 10 invitations later I busted out my hole punch.  I first tried the large one, and the below picture is what happened.  Not quite the dainty desired effect I was hoping for.  But, when I used the small daisy punch, it was perfect, and I got the first picture shown up top.


As far as putting the flowers on, I tried a couple different patterns, the one up top was the one I liked the best.  Each card gets 12 flowers.  The top row of flowers alternate dark purple, dark green, dark purple, dark green.  The middle row, which is off centered, is medium purple, medium green, medium purple, medium green.  And then the bottom row, aligned with the top, goes light purple, light green, light purple, light green.

Forgive the odd slant of some of the pictures.  Adjusting the size for my picture editing program online leaves it a little odd.  I promise you though, the little flower things are round not oval.  Also, forgive my blurred out portions.  Didn't quite feel ya'll needed my phone number and address.  I also have corrected the wrong year.  Ooops :)

Now, I did purchase 3 sheets of each color.  I also intend to punch extra flowers and put them in clear balloons before filling them with helium.  This way, when they float, the bottom of the balloons will have matching flower confetti on the bottom when you look up at them!  But, we'll do more on that after the birthday when I've managed to do it!

No comments:

Post a Comment