Birthday Invites

Wren's 1st Birthday is right around the corner!
Party invitations went out last weekend.
I love, love, love how they turned out!
I spent less on them than what Shutterfly invites would have cost...
and I do have lots of materials leftover...
but I did invest around 10 hours of my time into making them all from start to finish.
I probably could have had them done in 10 minutes with Shutterfly.
Oh well.
I enjoy having a creative outlet... so it was definitely worth it.
Plus, I think they are absolutely stinkin' adorable....

It may be kind of hard to tell, but the heart on the front is a sticker.
Open up the pretty pink paper, and Wren's cute face is starin' back at ya!
Inside the card is all the party info.
Totally cute, right? :)

Here's the price and location break down for ya...

Hobby Lobby:

• Kraft paper cards (and envelopes)... 50 for $5.99 (with 40% off coupon)
• Scrapbook paper... I bought probably 40 sheets of paper (I used a lot for other party decorations, plus I have some left over) at 50% off each... so around 30 cents each, $12.00 total.  ***Scrapbook paper is totally on sale at Michael's this week for 6 for $1.  That would cut your paper price in half at that price!  Since this was my biggest purchase, I definitely think that's worth noting.  Scrapbook paper is usually always on sale somewhere.  Never buy it at full price if you can help it!  I buy so much of it, I always wait until it's on sale!

Michael's:

• Rubber heart stamp (for the inside of the card)... $1.99 (50% off).
• White ink pad... $1.79 (with 40% off coupon).  I really wish I would have splurged a little more on this purchase.  Low quality ink=white ink smudges all over the cards.  Boo.

The Free Stuff:

• I ordered the pictures for the front from Shutterfly, but I had 50 free prints to cash in on.
• I used our home printer to print all the words (way easier than I thought it was going to be).  I did a couple of test runs with the different paper sizes I used, but it ended up being quite simple.
• I made the heart stickers on the front from the sticker part of leftover address labels.  I glued scrapbook paper onto the address label sheet, traced a heart pattern that I made, cut out, peeled off the back, and stuck onto the front of the cards.  Super easy and super cute!

Soooooo... overall, I spent around $22.00 for 30 cards.  That's 73 cents per card!  Less than any of the Shutterfly cards I was considering, and way super cute (I think, anyway)!  

Oh, and I have leftovers... 20 kraft paper cards and envelopes, some scrapbook paper, the rubber stamp, and the (crappy) ink pad.  Not too bad!

***These cards were a little heavy (1.2 ounces) and needed extra postage to be mailed out.  So I did end up having to pay an extra 20 cents per card to mail... but I think it was worth it.

Inspiration thanks to Pinterest!
Stay tuned for pics from Wren's birthday bash...
lots of Pinterest inspired decorations, too!

You can check out lots of other Pinterest inspired projects here!