birthday invitations...

Today I've been working on a little something for my daughter Kati's 6th birthday next week - some butterfly birthday invitations.

Awhile back when I made these lollipop bouquets, Kati decided she wanted a butterfly party for her 6th birthday, and she wants to make that craft with her friends at the party. We are actually going to have it at the park, but hopefully we can fit in a craft. I think I'm going to have things stamped out ahead of time and the lollipop bouquet bases already made and all they will have to do is assemble the bouquet - stick the lollipops in the middle of the stamped images and insert into the foam! (See link above for directions for that craft). I will probably change the colors of the lollipop bouquet stamping to match our invitations and party decor.

Anyway...let me tell you a little about my invitations! I started with Papertrey Ink's medium Glassine Bags. I used the sentiment from Blooming Button Bits and stamped it in black StazOn ink across the bag. The bags are somewhat slippery, so I thought StazOn would work the best. It did. But for the flower stems, I didn't really want black. I wanted to add some green, so I used Ripe Avocado ink with the stems from "Blooming Button Bits". It didn't come out perfectly, but that's ok. I used my heat gun to dry the green ink quickly, so I could move on to the next step. I stamped all of the sentiments and stems first to all of the invites.

Next, I made the insert for the inside, by printing out the party details onto white paper, then stamping a yellow butterfly over the top from Happy Trails.

The finished inserts were put inside the bags...
I punched a bunch of butterflies from vintage book paper and some October Afternoon - Detours paper from my stash...

...then attached the butterflies to the outside of each bag.

Then I added ALL of the buttons. This part is the most painful and took the longest! I threaded all of the buttons with white embroidery thread and attached them with a glue dot. To finish my invitations, I folded over the edge of the bags and stapled them closed with a staple and some pretty seam binding. To color the seam binding pink, I sprayed it with Vintage Pink Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels. I ran out of Vintage Pink, so I ended up spraying the rest of them with Viva Pink. Let them dry or heat them with a heat gun before attaching to your bag.

My older daughter asked me, "Why are you making them so fancy? You KNOW people will just throw them away!" Yes, I do believe she's right, but I do what I do because I enjoy it....and I hope they will put a smile on someone's face. :)