Cutest Party Invitations - E.V.E.R.!

If I do say so myself...over the past few years, I've done some pretty cute birthday party invitations for Elizabeth and Alex as evidenced below:

Elizabeth's 1st Birthday:

Alex's 1st Birthday (where I learned so much more on Photoshop):

E's 2nd Birthday (was a book of pictures of her throughout the year...) E's 3rd Birthday (definition of over-the-top, the entire Candyland party was actually), which I blogged about here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2009/01/birthday-party-preparations.html. E's 4th birthday was my first attempt at a pop-up card. I blogged about that as well as her Sesame Street themed event here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-sesame-birthday.html. Her 5th birthday were pretty awesome, too...I love Dr. Seuss and blogged about the invites and party here: http://wvu-mama.blogspot.com/2011/01/elizabeths-dr-seuss-5th-birthday-party.html.

For some time now, I've known that I was going with the "A Very Hungry CATErpillar" theme for her her first birthday. (The kid loves to eat!) To be honest, I bought some of the party supplies back in May...so this has been a long time coming. The invites alone, I think are worth doing this party theme! Here's what I've done and what it took to get there (work in Photoshop excluded):

First, I started with a spool of brown satin ribbon 1/4" thick. Cut the ribbon into 3" long pieces and heat sealed the edges (that's what the matches are for.) I then hot glued matching brown 'fuzz balls' on the edge of one end of the ribbon. You need 2 ribbons with balls for the antennae for each invitation.

Next, you glue (craft glue works just fine) the ribbon onto the back of the caterpillar's face. When you glue them down on the back side, make sure the fuzz ball is on top of the ribbon so when the antennae flop down on the face of the caterpillar, they will be on the correct side. (You don't have to be exact with this as this entire invitation is very forgiving for those of you, like me, who don't really like to measure anything...)

Then, I started assembling. I did a red brad on the part with the face (you'll overlap one circle with the next). When you are lining up the circles to make the holes for the brads, make sure you overlap enough that the hole and subsequent brad aren't too close to the edge. Based on how I did the circles in Photoshop, after the red brad for the face, I alternated a dark and a lighter green (coming as close as I could to matching the edge -- and yes, that involved special ordering brads from my favorite local scrapbook store!)

The brad work well as the finished product then can be wiggly and inch along, just like a caterpillar. It also allows the flexibility in the invitation for all of the panels to fold around (think like a fan when folding) so that the invite fits well into an envelope to be popped into the mail...

Here's the final product all unfolded (click on any of the images to make them larger):