We finished up our party invitations today, Kaia can't wait to give them to our mailwoman tomorrow! We had actually looked for some ready made invites to buy because, to be honest, I would rather be investing the time into the actual party. They were all too shameful to send out with our names on them, though, so we had to make our own. :) It was fun to come up with our own design, Kaia loves them and we had to make an extra one for her to play with, lol. I hope everyone else likes them even half as much as she does. :P We only had to make 10 invites because we have a lot of siblings on our list, but this could definitely get old if you had to make 40.
We bought a box of generic envelopes and sized our cards to them, using black construction paper folded in half. On a separate piece of construction paper I drew a castle shape that wouldn't be too hard to cut out, and then cut it out to make a stencil. Originally I was also going to cut windows into it, but I decided I wasn't interested in that much exact-o work and that glitter is more fun anyway. I did cut a door into it, though.
Once you have your stencil ready trace it out onto all your cards, I used a white coloured pencil. When you get to the doors, open your card and trace them onto the back side of the card cover. That way your pencil lines won't show. Only cut up the middle and around the top of your doors, leaving the sides connected for hinges. Cut out the sky area all the way around your castle, up to the cards fold. Leave the second half of your card whole. Pencil in where you want windows, or anything else you want to glitter. I added another roof. This doesn't need to be terribly neat, you will be gluing and glittering over it. It just needs to show you where you want things.
Now you need something for the inside of your card that is easier to write on and read. It also will serve as a backdrop for the castle. I used yellow. Cut your rectangles for the inside just a bit smaller than your folded card is. I used spray adhesive to adhere these. It is quick and it is easy to get a nice, thin, even coat of glue without bumps, wrinkles, or lines showing through. It stays tacky for a couple minutes, so I sprayed a few at a time. It is also very easy to peel your paper back up and reposition it if you get it on crooked, or to remove and replace it if you screw up your info, as I did on a couple. :)
When you fill out your information, take care not to have your writing show over or around your castle from the front. I added a moon and a few stars in the sky to help balance the open card. The info did not turn out very exciting and I wish I'd printed it.
I wanted to put something behind the opening doors to write on, but I also wanted it to look nice on the other side. I decided on the obvious choice - pumpkins! I cut one and used it as a stencil for the rest. Now, when you glue your pumpkin in, make sure you don't put glue where your doors will be. To make this easy I used the door stencil on the pumpkin and then glued everywhere else. Of course you could do a ghost, or any number of things other than pumpkins, but you want it to rest flat on the bottom edge of your card, at least for that length of it that will show inside the door from the outside.
I drew jack-o-lantern faces on the pumpkins to do in glitter.
I was going to tell you that you can use a paint brush and white glue for all this glitter work, but recommend using a glue pen if you have one. (Don't use a good brush for glue, they're never the same...) But that was when I couldn't find my glue pen and was doing all the cards with a paint brush. After finishing most of them I found my glue pen, and I changed my mind in a hurry. If you don't have a glue pen, I would buy one. It was soooo much nicer and easier! I love my glue pens, they are useful for so many things, they're a great tool to have around (granted you can find one when you need it!) I used a fine tipped ballpoint glue pen to finish the rest, and reveled in every moment of its ease and precision. Once you have your glue down, go ahead and dump on the shiny!
Do this over another piece of paper, or something that you can pick up and funnel your glitter back into its container with. We used a piece of cardboard left over from cutting the windows out of Kaia's boat. ;)
Miss Kaia is my official glitter dumper. She adores this job!
Front, too!
I put their names inside the doors, and they're all set.
Oh, and Kaia beautifully decorated our envelopes.
