I am looking on Ebay at custom/personalized party invites for my daughter's upcoming 3rd (pirate) party. They are insane at $1.50 each when I need 20! I don't want to buy them pre-packaged because I don't think they're as cute. SO, that leads me know that I need to make my own.
What program would be best to do this? I have Windows 7 on our pc. OR, I was also thinking of stamping on cardstock. Which do you think would be best?
Also, I am looking for cute wording for them. It's a pirate/treasure hunt themed party. Her name is Aubrey, she's turning 3, and the party is at our home. Any cute suggestions? I'm thinking of something like "Ahoy Mates! Set your sails to Captain Aubrey's 3rd..."
If you have lots of time, I second VistaPrints. You can get cute invites (designed by you with their options) for very cheap. Where they get you is the shipping, so if you have time to get the cheapest shipping, it's totally worth it.
I like this site for wording ideas:
http://www.verseit.com/VerseIt_VerseChoices.cfm
Good luck!!
I use construction paper or cardstock and stamos. I love how "custom: they turn out and my kids keep them in their forever boxes.
I make invitations for friends and family at a cost of a WHOPPING 19 cents each (printed at Walgreens). I could make them for you, depending on your timeline...If you are set on making them yourself, I use Microsoft Publisher. The "professionals" us photo shop or print shop (which I have but haven't had countless hours to learn).
email me privitely if you are interested and I can send you a link to see some of my work. :)
You may find some stock there for an invite you would like. Also you may consider doing the stamps and making your own card with embellishments from the craft store from the scrapbooking section.
You may want to consider doing small pirate chests with maplike note cards on them but this will run you over the $1.50 but would be a cute keepsake for the party.
Another great resource for party things which may give you great ideas for this party would be www.orientaltrading.com.
I usually do my own invites in Microsoft Publisher which is much more user friendly than Word and comes with templates for invitations. You just drop in pictures, dates, times, and other particulars for your specific party.
Try vistaprint.com! I made invites for my daughter's first birthday with her picture inside for not a lot of money. You can upload any picture, add whatever text you want and make them however you need. They ship quickly too! Good luck!
Take a picture of her in a pirate costume (or just use a cute pic of her you already have) and look at either snapfish.com or costco.com. We use them to make our Christmas cards every year and it is super cute, very inexpensive and fast! They have tons of backgrounds to choose from and you can design it the way you want. Good Luck!
Vista print has a promotion, 100 custom post cards FREE, just pay shipping. Good luck.
I would be happy to make a custom design for you and sell you a high resolution digital file for $20. Then you can print them anywhere that you would like and as many as you would like.
my website is www.WorksofaWink.com
All of my designs are custom so if you don't see something you like let me know and I will make something custom for you :)
Framemaker would be the most versatile software to use, but WAY overkill for 20 invites :)
I love Kimberly's map idea. You could try using cream-colored 5x7 index cards (Staples probably has them, or look online) and burning the edges. My mom did that for a school report I did ages ago, and it looked awesome.
Creative Memories Digital Scrapbooking is the program I use to make all of my cards, fliers, and scrapbook pages. You can buy a little or a lot...whatever you need.
HTH
D.
I second Microsoft Publisher, but if you don't have it, using Microsoft PowerPoint (if you have Office) is a pretty easy program to use with clip art and text. Make sure you turn on the ruler if you are going for a size smaller than 8.5x11. Go to their clip art website for free images: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/. If you like pieces of the clip art, some of them you can ungroup and delete that which you don't like, you can also *often times* change colors to ensure a perfect match. I think you have a handle on the text, although I'd say "mateys" instead of "mates". If you're hand delivering the invites, you can roll them up like real treasure maps.
