Birthday invitations .....

... well, I finished Kathryn's birthday invitations earlier this evening.  You may recall that just before the end of term Kathryn gave out a "Save the date" note to let her friends know the date and time of her birthday party.  On the notes we sent out I used the lovely Eat Cake and Big Day Essentials stamps from Waltzingmouse, and I continued the theme on the actual invitations too.  I got inspiration for these invitations from Anya's card for the stamp release.

I tried to stick to the colours we used on the last set of notes - but as I forgot to write down all the details and which colour went to which friend - I had to make them up a bit as I went along!  Fortunately, Kathryn is delighted with the invites and will be giving them to her friends tomorrow morning!!  Yes, Kath's back at school today - yea!!!!  Back to a normal routine :)

The invitations were easy to make and reasonably quick.  I started off by working out the layout and  setting up my stamp-a-ma-jig to position the word "Invitation" and for the cake stand.  Next I stamped the trellis border repeatedly onto a piece of white card - leaving a gap between them so that I could cut out strips 1.5cm wide.  Next I cut nine 2cm wide plain white strips - and these I coloured using my ink pads.  I simply placed the strip directly onto the ink pad, held it in place with one finger and pulled the strip with my other hand - works a treat!  I left the strips to dry.

I used the "Invitation - Evening Celebration" stamp from Big Day Essentials for the invites.  And I did something that still feels naughty!!  I used my scalpel to separate the words "Evening Celebration" from "Invitation" - which means that I can now use the beautiful flourish sentiment for all types of invitation.

To position the sentiment correctly onto the card bases I used my stamp-a-ma-jig.  Next I assembled the trellis ribbons - simply glued the blank trellis border on the coloured strips.  I cut a portion of the trellis ribbon to fit on the card and glued it in place.  I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to ensure that the cake stand was properly positioned, and then I used a pale shade of ink to stamp the cake and a darker shade to stamp the trellis icing or flowers.  I used my aqua brush to pain the balls on each trellis to match the icing/flowers on the cake.  Finally, I added names to each invitation.  These were printed onto Letraset Safmat, allowed to dry and then cut out and attached to the invitations.  Here are a couple of the invitations close up.

On some of the cards I used Memento inks and on other Distress inks.  I did find that the Memento inks gave a much clearer image than the Distress inks.  The pink, blue and green cards are Memento inks, while the orange one is Distress - the cake is a bit blotchy!!

Stamps:  Waltzingmouse - Big Day Essentials, Eat Cake
Inks: Memento - Tuxedo Black, Grape Jelly, Lulu Lavender, New Sprout, Cottage Ivy, Summer Sky, Danube Blue, Angel Pink, Rose Bud, Desert Sand, Tangelo;  Distress - Spiced Marmalade, Dried Marigold, Barn Door, Tattered Rose, Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint, Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed
Accessories;  Card, stamp-a-ma-jig, Safmat - all from stash

I made an insert, using Publisher, for each invitation - the font is Bradley Hand ITC.  And for fun I added a bit of clip art with a large number 10 over the top to go opposite the party details. 

I'm really pleased how well these invitations have turned out - Kathryn was so excited when she saw them.  Kathryn will be giving them to her friends tomorrow- and the official countdown to the party begins.  We ordered Kath's birthday cake last week, and this week I'll be making some decorations and preparing some photo frames for the girls to decorate at the party.

That's all for now - sorry it turned into such a long post!!  I'm off to Craft class this morning - great to be back into the normal routine.  See you later.