{ “Under the Sea” Birthday Party Invitations }

Published by Shai | Filed under Everyday Creativity

For my baby girl’s 1st birthday party, I decided on the theme of “Under the Sea” because I know how she loves the beach - and water in general. With this theme in mind, I started making lists of things to do and buy.

One of the first things that needed to be done was creating the Guest List and the Party Invitations. Always a tough one. I had the additional dilemma of whether to buy invites - or create them myself. I decided on the latter. And, I thought I’d share with you my step-by-step procedure for creating these “Under the Sea”-inspired invitations.

Step One:

After deciding on the theme, the next thing I did was sketch a design for the invites. Since I knew I’m planning to use my gocco machine for the base of the invites, I created my final drawing with a Riso carbon pen.

Step Two:

After creating my drawing, I burned a screen on the gocco machine. And, used ink blocks to separate certain areas, since I knew I wanted to use different inks on the same screen. I then printed on blank white notecards I bought from the local craft shop.

Step Three:

After allowing the prints to dry, I hand painted the design with goauche paints. I used the goauche more like a watercolour here - and allowing the gocco inks to be my guide as outlines.

Step Four:

After the paints are dry, I hand-stamped the main text “Hali’s 1st Birthday Bash” plus the invite text (To, You’re Invited, Date, Time, Place, RSVP) using clear acrylic stamps from my stamp collection. I decided to use Staz On ink (instead of the usual pigment/dye inks), to make sure that it will stamp properly over gocco inks and paint. I did not experiment with the other types of stamp inks because I didn’t have the time. So, I’m not sure if those can actually work.

Step Five:
After the inks are dry, I embellished the invitations with a fabric flower embellishment. Just to add a 3D/textural element to the invitation.

The next steps after these are: Filling out the invitations (To, Date, Time, etc)… and then sending them off, of course.

Oh, and yes, I also created matching envelopes by using the same gocco screen - but only printing part of the design on one side of the envelope.

Note: Everyday Creativity is a new section here, where I wish to share creative ideas and projects that I’ve done for use in my daily life. Instead of turning to store-bought or off-the-shelf items, I like trying to make them more personal by injecting creative touches.