Final birthday invite

Here's the final invitation for my nephew's first birthday party. I can't believe I did 35 of these... that's 210 balloons (105 blue ones and 105 white blackout ones)! Yay for my Cricut! Although, to be honest, I didn't end up cutting all the balloons with the stars. The stars were a pain as they didn't cut clean through, even with a brand new blade; I spent a lot of time with an exacto knife poking them out. So some of the invites has a mixture of solid blue and starred balloons.

Here's the front:


Paper: Creative Imaginations Pizzazzil (Limeade Harlequin, Heather dot), Georgia Pacific white
Cricut: Celebrations: party hat + shadow-4.5"; balloon + blackout-2.5"
Accessories: curling ribbon

The inside of the cards with all the pertinent information was created using InDesign and printed out on a laser printer, cut in half and folded. The main panel was then attached to the front.

In the end, I did the majority of the assembly, not my mom or sisters. Admittedly, it was easier for me to assemble the fronts in stages while parts were still on the Cricut cutting mats (i.e. gluing the party hat to the white "shadow" layer is MUCH easier when the white layer is still on the mat). I wasn't supposed to do the inside of the cards either, but it was a LOT easier for me to do them on the computer than wait for my sister to stamp/handwrite them all. She also flaked on gluing the fronts to the card base after she did about 5 of them, so I finished them up on Easter Sunday while hanging out at mom's.

Hopefully I'll remember this experience when it comes time to do baby shower invites for my best friend and make them much simpler. Or design them completely on the computer. (Boring! since computer layouts are what I do for a living.)