How to make Shabby Chic Doily Invitations

So, my 30th is only bout 4.5 weeks away, and to celebrate I am having a Vintage Inspired/Shabby Chic High Tea at my sister’s house. We have been scouring the second-hand stores and eBay for all kinds of vintage and shabby chic serving ware to use on the day. So far I have collected a few fine bone china pieces, some glass and crystal ware, and even some chrome serving platters and tiered cake stands. We have a menu drafted ready to refine, and I have just now finished making the invitations ready to go out to female friends and family. I decided to create invitations that represented a colour theme I would like to work with. That came in the form of paper doilies, and Christina Re Butterfly Garden.  Apologies for the phone pics- my camera batteries are flat again!

The invitations themselves are quite simple to make, but I think they have a little bit of ‘wow factor’ to make them just that little bit special. If you would like to make some similar, you will need some basics:

• background/feature paper
• vellum (to print details/information onto
• paper doilies
• coordinating ribbon
• acid free adhesive (I used the Christina Re Tape Roller)
• paper cutter

To begin with, I cut my butterfly paper into 4 (half, then half again- this just happened to be a good size for my doilies). Once I had enough cut, I went through and lined them up on the wrong side of the doilies, and folded the sides of the doilies in before cutting off the excess. I attached the paper to the doilies with the tape adhesive.

Next I typed, printed, and cut my vellum inserts to size, before securing them to the butterfly paper with a small amount of adhesive tape in each of the top corners. I cut the inserts slightly smaller than the butterfly paper so that there would be a ‘border’ around them.

To finish off the invitations I tied them with some ribbon

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Monster High and Minnie Mouse Invitations in Photoshop

For my girl’s birthdays this year, I decided to let them choose whatever theme they wanted, with the aim to make as many of the party items as possible. Of course, Miss 7 chose Monster High as her theme, and wanted a disco party at the local RSL club. Since the club provides the food and entertainment, all I had to do was supply the cake, and make some invitations in the Monster High theme.
I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do this, until my sister started talking about ordering digital invitations, and printing them out on photo paper. She showed me some examples of Minnie Mouse invitations, and I quickly assured her that I could do them myself in Photoshop to save her some money. This is where the Monster High invitation idea was born.

Having used the basics of Photoshop in the past to play with digital scrapbooking elements, I knew I could just apply the same principles to the invitation process. I simple Googled “Monster High” in the image search, and saved all the ones I thought might look ok on an invitation. Of course, and image with the main characters was a must for Miss 7, as was the Skullette, and the Monster High School crest.

A bit of layering; a little resizing and free transforming; some added text; a few drop shadows etc, and within an hour I had this (excuse the blanked out contact details):

My sister was pretty impressed, and agreed that I could have a crack at making my nieces Minnie Mouse invitations, so I searched for some Minnie Mouse images, and came across some digital scrapbooking papers and elements that would be perfect. I purchased them, downloaded, and set to work. The end result was exactly what my sister was after, and again, i had the invitation done in under an hour.

Next on my list are the invitations for my other daughters birthday party next month. She is having a Rainbow High Tea for her 5th birthday, and I will also be using Photoshop to make her invitations, along with cupcake toppers and wrappers; name tags for goodie bags and drinks; and labels for platters of food etc.

If you think you might like to try making digital invitations in Photoshop, the following links have some great tutorials on how to do so. The instructions are easy to follow, and there are screenshot images to demonstrate the different steps involved.

http://www.madtuts.com/2010/01/create-a-professional-party-invitation-in-photoshop/

http://bloomwebdesign.net/myblog/2011/08/08/create-a-print-ready-invitation-in-photoshop/

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• Minnie Mouse Party (amultifariousme.wordpress.com)