I know what I want!

"I know what I want and I want it right now!"

For the past 4 days, I have been trying to put together my son's first birthday party invitations. My mother, who has been reading blogs right along with my aunt and I, read "Jason. For the Love of God." when she mentioned Purple Stork for all of her card needs including her holidays cards. My mother decided to put a birthday invitation/announcement for Little Man A's first birthday. Her idea? I've been taking pictures of A on his month anniversary with the same little bear each month since he has been born (I had received it as a gift from one of my wonderful friends in Texas!). I have months 1 through 11 displayed in frames in our living room. I read this idea while I was still pregnant and knew I had to do it. Here's his latest pic:



Well, I won't display his announcement... no, it didn't turn out to be an invitation because we would have had to order 35 of them. You'll have to check back on December 14th! But, I will tell you that it turned out incredible! And just as That Chick over there said, they are extremely personable! I received atleast 10 different compliments when I was sending the pictures to them, they were so patient while we changed from an invitation to an announcement, and made sure every last detail was perfect! And when I finally received the package, there were small candy canes on top of the order, the box was filled with purple crepe paper, and there were an additional 2 small wallet size versions of my announcement! Now I get to carry it around in my purse and show everyone!

So, since this turned out to be an announcement, rather than an invitation, I was back to making my own invitation. I didn't want any store bought version. Since we are having a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme for his party, it had to be Mickey Mouse ears! I played around with my powerpoint version on our mac and decided on the perfect font, colors, and text. Then, to save on black ink why not print it on black cardstock? Because my stupid printer wouldn't pick up the cardstock! So, then we're back to printing on white cardstock with white or yellow fonts. We have an inkjet so I could see all the lines from the printing.

My husband and his brilliant ideas (really, sometimes they are pretty good) mentioned that he has this awesome $8000 printer at work and he'll try to copy the invitation onto black cardstock. So, we're back to yellow font. That barely showed up on the black cardstock. Next day, I send him back to work with white cardstock to print the invitation on this $8000 printer with white and yellow font. He calls me and asks if I want it to be shiny. Shiny? Sure! This way I wouldn't have to mark over the font with a puffy pen to make the font "pop" off the page even more. Right? Wrong! Apparently, when he printed it with regular, plain printer paper it was shiny. With my cardstock? Not so much!

There are twelve squares total on the announcement, one for each month obviously. The twelveth square on the announcement was left blank so I could include a diecut of Mickey mouse ears. Of course, the small punch that I have is way too small, so I'm back to powerpoint making my own version of Mickey Mouse ears (for all of you that are curious, it's a simple 2:1 ratio). Now, I have to cut each one out and glue them to the announcement. The Mickey Mouse font cartridge from Cri-cut diecut machine would be really handy right about now (hint hint).

Then on top of that, when I put RSVP... hello?? No phone number! Jeez!

Damn it! I really wanted these out 3-4 weeks prior, especially because Christmas is just after his birthday and I know people will be busy. All this for 5 stupid invitations to my son's first birthday party that he won't even remember! Why do we try so hard? Well, atleast the announcements look beautiful! Thanks Mom!