Luau Birthday Party Invitation

Summertime is almost here! (For most of you, that is. It's pretty much already here in my neck of the woods). Seems like Luau parties are pretty popular this time of year, for good reason! Taylor wanted a luau party for her birthday a couple of years ago, and this is the invitation I made for it. Want to recreate it for your own bash? It's pretty simple. Really!

You'll need:
cardstock
envelopes
ribbon for waistband
silk flowers
raffia
scissors
hot glue gun
rhinestones or buttons

1. On a scrap piece of paper, use a pencil to sketch out the main part of the invitation. Once you are happy with the shape and are sure it will fit in the envelopes, trace it onto the back side of your cardstock (so pencil lines won't show), and cut them out.

My invitation is approx. 5 1/4" tall, 3 1/2" wide at the top and 5 7/8" wide at the bottom.

2. Now, we're going to print on the invitations. I use MS Word. I put all the information on a blank document, using the "return" key and the "tab" key to keep the shape of the text roughly to the shape of the invitation. When I think I've got it right, I'll print it out and then hold the print out and the cut out invitation to the light to make sure it fits correctly. It usually takes a couple of tries to get it perfect. Once I'm satisfied with the text, I'll use re positional adhesive to attach the invitation to the print out and then run it through the printer.

I do this instead of printing out the text and then cutting out the invitations for a couple of reasons. One is that my invitations are often oddly shaped and it would be much more difficult to cut the invitations out after the fact if I've already got them printed. The second is that I waste less of my cardstock. I can twist and turn my invitation pattern on my paper to use as much of my expensive cardstock as I can. If my info was already printed on my cardstock, I wouldn't be able to do this. And last, because I'm not putting my cardstock through the printer as a whole sheet, I can buy 12" x 12" cardstock (which is about the same price as 8 1/2" x 11") and get more invitations per sheet.

3. Now that the invitation is printed, we're ready to decorate it! Cut pieces of raffia the same length as your invitation and attach with hot glue. (liquid glue doesn't dry fast enough, so the raffia slips and slides).

4. Cut the ribbon for the waistband. I made my ribbon long enough so that it wrapped completely around the back. You don't necessarily have to do that, but you do need to make sure that your ribbon is long enough to wrap around the back slightly (it looks more finished if you can't see raw ribbon edges on the front side). I couldn't find a wide ribbon that I liked, so I just used two rows of a smaller ribbon instead. Here are some ideas for the waistband:

• use two rows of smaller ribbon
• use a wider ribbon
• use a wide ribbon and place a smaller ribbon on top

You just want to make sure the raffia gets covered. Use hot glue to attach it.

5. Attach the flowers. Mine are small silk flowers that I got from the dollar store. I pulled them off the stems and separated the petals. Craft stores usually sell paper flowers (in the scrapbook section) that would work just as well. I glued a rhinestone in the center of my flowers for a little bit of bling!