Easy Homemade Birthday Invitation Idea

While planning my daughter's first birthday party I wanted to keep spending down, yet make it really special. My thought was to make the invitations myself. Then I got to thinking about what would happen to my invitations once the RSVP's were returned...thrown in the garbage! I didn't want to spend money on expensive store-bought invitations, yet at the same time I didn't want to spend time and money on materials and homemade invitations that would be thrown out. What to do, what to do?

I came up with a keepsake invitation idea. I decided I would make invitation bookmarks. All it required was cardstock, a computer/printer, some ribbon and a laminating machine, although that could be optional. I used Microsoft Publisher to design the bookmark. My daughter's party is froggy-themed, as is her nursery, toys and a lot of her clothes. On the top of the bookmark I put a picture of her in her Halloween costume (a frog) and underneath, in a fun font, I added the general party details. I could print 4 on a 5x7 bi-fold piece of card-stock (opened and flattened).

Once printed, I cut out and laminated the bookmarks. Laminating will help them stand up to wear and tear, but isn't necessary. If you're not going to laminate consider cutting the bookmarks out with pinking shears to add a decorative edge. Once laminated, I used a single hole punch in the center of the top of the bookmark and tied a 6-inch piece of decorative ribbon.

I purchased lime green and neon pink envelopes to send the invitations in. I also included a slip of paper decorated similar to the bookmark requesting invitees to RSVP by a certain date. To vamp up the froggy theme I purchased a frog-shaped rubber stamp and stamped the lower right corner of each envelope and the back of the RSVP slips. It turned out looking like a watermark that had been professionally added! The great thing about the stamp: I can use it over and over and over for other froggy-themed things. At $4, I couldn't pass that up!

All said and done I made 50 invitation bookmarks and purchased an inkpad, envelopes and rubber stamp for about $25. The average invitation 8-pack runs about $4-$5. Not only did I save money making these invitations, they are perfectly suited to our froggy theme and the friends and family that are invited will have something that they can remember the party by as well!