Feathering Kristin's Nest - Part 1: Baby Shower Invites with Bird

In November of 2010 I designed a baby shower theme for my amazing friend Kristin.  I came up with a few ideas and she loved the "nesting" theme for the decor.  Erika White is a fabulous hostess and she inspired me with some tips on decor that I ran with.  Kristin has awesome taste and her home is decorated beautifully so I wanted to make sure a baby shower in her honor was something she would love and that would fit her.  


Once I determined the theme and color scheme (brown and cream with small touches of blue), I started doing some research for invites.  I ended up deciding to go with a handmade custom invite.  For the look I wanted, it was incredibly expensive to order invites from a stationer.  We needed 60 invitations...I don't think I realized at the onset just how long that would take!  However, the design was relatively simple to assemble.  I started with cream card stock (8.5x11 sheets cut to two invitations--each one was trimmed to 5x7 in order to fit in a standard 5.25x7.25 stationery envelope).  Then I bought chocolate brown card stock and did the same except I cut that into 1x5 strips to put at the bottom of each invitation--all of the paper came from this place.  I found a great robin's egg blue small grosgrain ribbon at this place with chocolate stitching along both sides of it that I glued along the "seam" created between the cream and chocolate card stock.  


The chocolate card stock was also used to punch out small birds, and light blue card stock was used to punch out small hearts.  The birds...oh, the birds.  I looked everywhere for a craft punch that was the right kind of simple, small bird.  But in the age of Sizzix, Quickutz dies, and especially Cricut machines and cartridges, it's nearly impossible to find.  Who knew the world of scrapbooking had exploded into such sophisticated (and PRICEY) gadgets to get the shapes you want?!?  All I wanted was a little bird.  But the only punches I could find were Christmas doves or soaring birds, not what I was looking for.  


I was browsing through Hobby Lobby and found this Quickutz 2x2 die for under $5:

It was perfect.  It's a small plate that will press into paper and essentially "punch" the design into it.  The only problem is, you have to have one of these to make it work properly and press the design into the paper:

And these are not exactly cost efficient...honestly, they're expensive for something you'll use one time!  If I were going to build a collection of die cuts maybe...but I digress.


I have a friend who has a Sizzix lever press, and I thought I'd give it a shot.  It was incredibly tedious because that machine doesn't work with a Quickutz die.  However, by stacking an inch of scrap paper with it to create a thicker pad we were able to get enough of them to make it work.  (I probably won't ever do it again, but it worked!)  It would be worth it to have the right machine if I were going to regularly use the die.  Because the bird was so labor intensive, I used a small craft punch I had from years ago for the heart instead of trying to punch them out with the die plate.  


I hand wrote the invitations and assembled them with an Elmer's craft glue stick.  (Archive safe)

Each invite was hand-assembled and hand-written, so no two were exactly alike.  (That could be good or bad as not all were perfect!)  I did the branch by hand and glued the card stock bird and heart to it.  The writing was done with a brown fine-tip Sharpie pen.  I used a corner round punch to create a softer overall look.  


The bottom line:  any great event starts with an invitation to set the tone and excite your guests about attending.  Evites and other email invitation tools are useful for some things, but there's really no substitute for getting a beautiful invitation in the mail whenever it is feasible to go that route.  I'm pretty traditional when it comes to that.   


This was the finished result, photos courtesy of Amber Beckham Photography: