Jacob's Birthday Invitations

Yay! I just finished all Jacob's birthday invitations! I have done invitations/ Christmas cards like this since Noah's birth announcements and keep thinking I'm going to change to do a little more of a regular card just because all of them I've done are so similar in layout, just different paper lines. But then I go over to someones house and I see all of them up on the fridge and I just love the way they look and that people can keep them looking cute on their fridge instead of just a picture stuck in the card. haha...I'm lame like that. I guess I'll keep doing the same thing until people's fridges fill up:)

This paper line is Basic Grey...my favorite scrapbooking company...I LOVE all their lines! It's their cupcake line. I only used four papers (3 on front, 1 on back), and 1 chipboard pack (I just put a different embelishment on each one). These were my easiest cards I have made, they only took me 3 hours for all of them...my Christmas cards on the other hand took probably 10 hours easy...but I loved them too:)

So here's how I do it to make my life a little easier. I cut a 12x12 into 3 5x7 rectangles. This is the background piece. Double-sided paper works best for this as I normally decorate the back with the information and stuff that people won't need to know after it's up on their fridge:)

Then, I cut a 12x12 into 6 4x5.5" pieces. This is to mount the picture on. I always print my pictures in a 3 1/2 by 5 so that I don't have to do any trimming, if you take your picture into costco and ask for this size they will print it up for you...$.13 you can't beat it.

Then I print up on textured cardstock whatever I want it to say on the front of the card ("All grown up, Our sweet Jacob is turning 1!") Then I cut those up and mount them all on to the other paper that I have picked out! It really is pretty inexpensive! Oh, and I also have to mention that I chalk everything! Even each little piece of the tree, it really makes your projects have something extra. I've tried to skip this step, and things just don't look as quality. I also use pop-dots to pop different things up (like the words) just to give some more texture.

That's it! It can be as simple or as fancy as you want it to be, like on the Christmas ones I added fibers and some stars and ornaments, but on Jacob's invites I just stuck on a piece of chipboard! Pretty simple! I think the key is picking good papers...oh, and my Christmas cards also featured all Basic Grey papers, their two Christmas lines. haha...I think I have most of their stuff...it's just so cute! I already have Noah's planned out and they are the dinasour Basic Grey line...