Thursday, September 29, 2011

Meant To Bee - Invitations and Paper Goods

I thought we should start off with the first thing you need to send out when you are planning a party - the invitations. Your invites will be the first insight your guests have to the type of party you are planning and what theme you are going with. All of your paper goods will also coincide with the invites. As I have stated (numerous times) I consider myself "craft challenged" and my instinct is to head straight to Etsy to find the real "pros". I had someone in mind to do my invites and paper goods but, I found myself 14 days out from the party (not good advice and please do not follow my lead on this!) without a confirmed order. I was close to panic mode and knew I had to get the invitations done so, I ventured into what I consider a foreign country - Michael's Craft Store. I found some A7 card stock with envelopes, a 4x6 white card stock and some little wooden bee self-adhesive stickers. 




I have a program called PrintingPress from Moutain Cow that I bought years ago - a good investment at $29.99 since I have been using it for many years now! It makes printing invitations, RSVP cards, envelopes and more super easy!


I knew there would be certain paper goods I would need: stickers, banners, table tent cards, decorative cupcake sticks and address labels. The stickers and the address labels proved to be the easiest out of the bunch! I have used these labels (the same boxes mind you!) for years and multiple projects! I have perfected the round label using MS Publisher! I used the round labels to print the invitation envelope seals and stickers used on the push cake pops. I changed the sticker up, a bit, for this post. But, this can be used to seal the envelopes to the party (before, during and after!) or to seal a favor bag or box. There are so many uses! This is what it will look like:


This file was created using MS Publisher - if you use any other program you may need to change a few things to tweak it. This can also be reinvented for so many other needs like changing the text to say - SAVE THE DATE and then add your date underneath or change the words to "THANK YOU" to use on favors! CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE BEE STICKER
*Should be used with Avery 8293 labels




One of the next projects was creating table tent cards. These are pretty easy to make. Simply print out on heavy stock paper and then cut into four. I actually used a heavy photo paper I had (to give them a shiny look) but, card stock will also work. I then used some ribbon I had to go with the theme and used a little bit of gorilla glue. Boy, that glue really could work on a gorilla...it's amazing! You can download the template for the table tent cards here. Simply change the text to work for your party - these can also be used for seating cards or escort cards! I do all my work in MS Publisher - if you use another program you may have to adjust the specs.



Cupcake topper or party sticks can be used for a variety of goodies. These were fairly easy to make - the hard part was finding the right size puncher to use! I think checking online would be a better way to go because, honestly the selection at craft stores  near me was somewhat limited! They had a lot of them...just not the perfect size or shape. My first purchase was for a scalloped 2 inch circle - that just did not work though! It just seemed too small once you punched them out. I then purchased a 2.5 inch round circle punch. I bought some fun scrapbook paper at Michael's ($0.69 per sheet). I used the 2.5 inch puncher to get the polka dot circle, printed out the smaller decorative circles on photo paper and just used some household scissors to trim and of course some 6 inch lollipop sticks. The lollipop sticks were $4.99 for 100 sticks! My gorilla glue came in handy once again to assemble. These were fun to do and I plan on using this idea for some other upcoming parties. You can download this image to use for the smaller circle - just add text or image you want to use. You can also use your photo editing software to change the color of the circles!
One of my craft friends, she is in the "pro crafter" category, made the Happy Birthday banner for me. She has all the fancy gadgets, like the Cricut, which would have made a lot of my DIY projects easy! I couldn't see investing that kind of money into my own projects although, I do think that it would be fun to own one to see what I could come up with! Bee Creative, my friends business, has all kinds of banners, invitations and well, pretty much anything you can think up - she can do!


This finally wraps up my post on the invitations and paper goods! I hope all the files I uploaded will help you with your crafts projects! And if you are on Facebook, head on over to Bee Creative and "like" them! Now, let's talk about one of my favorite things: the sweets!!

Our Meant To Bee Giveaway is now open! 
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Tip Junkie handmade projects




1 comment:

  1. These are some very common and creative options to give a new and attractive look to your party or an organized meet. Thanks for the useful stuff.

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