Birthday Invitation Wrap Up

Occasionally (or rather literally when an occasion at home comes up), I would daydream of being a DIY Goddess. Think Martha Stewart. Really. But in reality, I do not even have 1% of her incredible skills. I struggle hard at every arts and crafts project that I embark on with my overeager little miss. But of course, since I have an enthusiastic student I always try my hardest to deliver my best. Although I tended to be very unlucky with raffles and lotteries, the kid and I often (as luck would have it) ended  with surprisingly nice looking projects. The Fates probably thought it wiser to gift me with the luck in this kind of things since they know how difficult it is to console disappointed kids.

So anyways, with the class birthday party in mind I thought of the great amount of joy I could bring to the kid if I DIY her birthday invites taking to mind all things enchanted and fairy-like. But as I brainstormed for hours, I just ended up mentally-drained and tired. And yet with nary an idea to start with. So I embraced defeat yet again. And decided it's time I called for back up. I am eternally grateful for cousins who are gifted with real (and not fake ones like mine) artistic talents who are also ever ready to take over from where I failed. 

So I say again, "Hello there, Ninong Jepoy!" and browse the internet for some generic fairy-themed invites and send the first thing that I see to my cousin to personalize for the kid. Here's what he came up with.

i had to blur out the party details. i wanted to link up the source of this photo but i cannot remember where i got it from. so my advance apologies. i really have no intention of claiming ownership over this design.

I wanted a very simple birthday invite BECAUSE I was very watchful of my budget and I didn't want to overspend as well. But I also didn't want to totally disregard the kid's wishes of seeing fairies and castles in it. So this is the best I can come up with. I swear, little miss, best effort na 'to ni Mommy (and mostly Ninong hehe). 

I had that printed as a 3R photo. Picture City over at ATC (I'm sure they have branches in other malls around the metro) has a 5+1 promo so we got about 6 pcs for free since we also had some of the kid's recent photos printed for our birthday card exchange project. So that costed me about P4.50/pc. Not bad at all. And I still have P5.50 left to spend for the envelope since I budgeted each invite at P10/pc.

I was thinking of something generic to get for the invite. I thought we'll just seal them with stickers for added color but when I was browsing through the available envelopes at National Bookstore, I couldn't find anything that would fit the invite. So I was looking around almost ready to just go with the next best thing when my eyes fell on this rack that houses coin envelopes. I grabbed a pack and measured it against the size of the invite and TA-DAHHHHH, we found our winner! 

So yes, I went with a coin envelope and a photo paper printed invite. So boring looking. So unappealing. But who cares. It passed my little girl's standards and it fit my budget. That's all that mattered really. 

When we got home, the little miss was so excited to start working on them so I got the invites out and she starting pulling the envelopes out of the package one by one. Lining them up and counting them over and over. 

"Mommy, huwag mo kakalimutan si N, si A and si C ha?!"

"Yes, ma'am birthday girl. I got them all covered!" (she giggled at my response and at the sight of her class list)

i hand wrote the names of her classmates on each card and
she sealed them with letter stickers depending on the first letter of her classmate's names

After we've finished inserting into the envelopes and sealing all 22 pieces of her birthday invites, she asked me to help her sort the invites according to the gender of the recipient. It turned out to be her way of checking if we missed somebody out. She kept insisting we missed 3 but I thought maybe the other kids were using nicknames in school that's why they weren't on the list that Teacher J confirmed to me. But the daddy was telling me, he trusts his daughter's memory. So the following day, I sent Teacher J a note to re-confirm the list and guess what -- the kid was right all along. Teacher J did miss to add 3 more to my list. Good job kiddo for double checking!

So we've sent out the invites. The kid is soooo ready to party. But I have yet to finalize everything. I don't know yet where we'd get the food. Or if we'll have banners and balloons. I'll go by my instinct. We'll go by whatever would work best for us that day. I'm excited to see though the kid's reaction when they see Kraze Kitch's Rainbow Cake. (because the cake was a big hit from last year's party we're reordering again this year) I hope I can find nice garden/enchanted/fairy themed toppers for that.

By the way, I spent less than P150 for 25 invitations. Do I get a good job, Mommy cheers as well?