Baby Invitations Part 2 – Something Special

Today’s post is part 2 of my mini series on the handmade invitations i made for my sister’s baby shower. On to the meat and potatoes of what made these invitations really special!

If i’m given a task, i like to do it really well and go beyond the basics if i can. Sending out invitations is fun: you get to address them, put pretty stamps on them and then you start receiving RSVPs in the mail. It’s like a little mailbox full of Christmas anticipation every day, even though i don’t know who any of these people are: they’re my sisters’ friends. She would be missing out on that excitement and on all the little notes folks sent back. And what about the “no” RSVPs….  I wanted there to be a way for each invited person to send a special message to both my sister and her son that would last beyond the mailbox and guest list. I had a plan!

I took my inspiration from those multi-colored cloth Tibetan prayer flags and plastic Mexican party flags: long banners of colored strips with patterns or prayers written on them. What if i compiled a stack of banners with a personal blessing/sentiment from all of the invited guests and strung them on a long cord to hang at the shower and ultimately in the nursery? It would be awesome, that’s what. And it was! More on the results next week, this week is all about the process.

First off, i designed the size of the RSVP card and “special instructions” card to fit the size of the finished banner sheet. I then cut (with my handy dandy rotary cutter) strips of cloth about 3 inches wide and then cut those down to about 5 inches tall.

Once cut to uniform sheets, i got out the multi-colored spools of thread and used a zigzag stitch to border 3 sides of all the sheets. This took a while, but was worth it. I ended up with yellow, green, red and blue bordered sheets of cloth.

From there, i folded the top over to cover the area that would be sewn into the banner’s cord and stapled 1 flag to 1 ‘special instructions’ card which specified what i wanted the guest to do with this odd invitation. I placed the special instructions/ flag onto the RSVP envelope, covered with the RSVP card and glue dotted the envelope upside down into the interior of the invitation card. A guest would take out the card from its envelope and open it to find their RSVP goodies ready for them and secured in place. It really was quite cute!

It was SUCH fun receiving the banners in the mail with all sorts of personal sentiments from poems to bible verses…. but more on that next week!

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This week’s featured Fiber Friends are a little family of Buff Orpington chickens.

Aren’t they just the cutest things? Those chicks are TEENY! Perfect for scurrying around the backyard of any dollhouse. I’m scheming up Easter packages for next Spring with families of chickens, bunnies and maybe ducks inside plastic Easter eggs.

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Do you enjoy sending out invitations, or is it a pain in the butt?