Thank you for stopping by yesterday! Did you have a good day of lurve? I may or may not have received the new Twilight movie. Girls night at my house?
I hope you saw potential in the projects! I love scrapbooking and all the ways it has infiltrated my life. Do you feel the same? (I thought so. That's why we're such good friends. Because you get that part of me. (Which happens to be a big part of my life...))
Thank you for celebrating our craft with me this week! Today we are going to focus on invitations & announcements.
The Backstory
When Nigel was born, I hadn't yet begun to scrapbook, but I knew that I wanted some cool baby announcements. I looked in the yellow pages under "Paper" so that I could find a store that sold something that didn't look like it was supposed to contain a resume. And I found Paper Creations. I went in, got what I needed, and went home to create. (I would be lying if I failed to acknowledge that yes, I did notice the scrapbook stuff, and yes, I did exactly and certainly accept that I would soon be back to try out this growing hobby...)
The birth announcement wasn't anything pretty, but I was very proud of it.
A few months later, I returned to that same store to buy some scrapbook paper to begin my new life as a scrapbooker. And for several years, I made hundreds of layouts. Many layouts. But just layouts.
And then I realized that now I had the supplies, the tools, and a much better understanding of how to make cooler invites than I could buy in the store, and some pretty rockin' announcements.
Invitations
As you are putting your invites together, don't forget the basics: name, address phone number, RSVP info; but then, go wild! have fun! I love how an invite can set the mood and the theme of the party.
Might I share a funny story with you? We once had a neighbor girl (let's call her Sally) who invited every girl in her school class for her 7th birthday party. Her mom had sent invitations with Barbie on them. For no reason other than they were on sale. Lo and behold, come party day, Sally got 13 Barbies for her birthday. Every single gift was a Barbie. For those moms who didn't know Sally, the invitation was a clue as to what she liked. (And gratefully she did. Not sure about 13 dolls' worth, but did like them!)
It's true that invitations can tell much more of a story than just the pertinent details. When we don't much about an event, we truly look to the invitation for guidance. I tell you so that as you design an invitation, you are careful about what you put on.
I am a big sucker for theme parties and invites. As I was hunting for cute examples for you, I found these that I thought were awesome! This one was for a messy party. How fun is that?
I found this one on Pinterest. Oooh, love this one.
And here is a fun one! Prepare to giggle if you go look through the party pics!
Here are the last two invitations to leave our house. This year the parties had neither subject nor color theme (we often have color parties for birthdays!), so instead the invitations just became about representing the girls. Oh, and sharing the deets. Because the boundaries were so wide, the girls helped me with the colors and vetoed a couple of fonts on the way to the final product. Gotta love a four year with font preferences!!
Are you up for creating an invitation for your next shower or birthday party? I hope you will. You have the skills. I know you do!
Announcements
Babies. I love them. The smell, the touch, the sleepy scrunched-up faces. Everything. But when I had mine, I found that as much as I wanted to shout the news of their births from the rooftops, the minute they were born, I was too tired to do them right away. Remembering that, I have begun to offer to create the birth announcements as a baby present. Not everyone takes me up on it. (To be clear, ALL the second plus time moms take me up on it right away. Some first-timers don't understand at first, but most eventually call!)
Here are a couple I made recently.
A quick tip on multi-photo announcements: if you include body part shots (ie. heads, toes, fingers, etc) be careful how you place them. Toes and feet are better on the bottom row, and heads on the top. And try not to gather these shots all together without a full body shot. It starts to look a little creepy. Likewise look for things like hands coming out of an adjacent head photo, etc. It can easily turn all Toy Story on you. (Remember when the boy combined parts of dolls together? I couldn't watch that movie for years--too creepy!)
I thought perhaps you might want to spread the announcement-making love, so I put together a printable for you that you can tuck into a card and to help you get all the pertinent information that you will need. You can download it here.
You have the skills, baby! Now show them off! You, my dear scrapbooker, are not just a scrapbooker. You are also a graphic designer and a master crafter. Yes, yes, you are! If you have any invitations, or announcements, please leave a comment and link to your project! I would love to see what you have made!
Tomorrow will be give.away.day. I look forward to your comments! And then I will see you back here on Friday!
until then,
