We were approached by a mom who wanted to give her daughter who is turning 18 a special birthday party complete with DIY birthday party invitations with a Shabby Chic feel. They wanted to be involved in the design process, which I love! In my experience it works best this way! The invitation you see here isn't even close to what they thought they wanted in the first place.
It's been my experience that when someone wants a personalized invitation the design process can take on a life of it's own, and not in a bad way! It starts out with a theme and goes from there. Depending on the person the design process can change once or several times.
OUR CREATIVE DISCOVERY
Our creative discovery began when we met at a local craft store where they were thinking they wanted to start with pre-made wedding invites and then personalize them to meet their needs. When they saw them it's wasn't what she wanted. Being creative people themselves it was interesting to see what was going through this mom and her 17 year old daughters mind. They definitely had a vision. So as we scoured the isles of the craft store we found items to decorate the table at the Rochester Brunch House. This was part of the design process for the invitations. We found adorable items to go on the table.
There is a bunch more items and we are not sure how it will be laid out, yet quite certain that it will be amazing! So based on this they purchased items for the gift bags for her friends (which we will show you once they are finished!), and items to make name tags. We purchased awesome wide ribbon that the mom and daughter are going to make into bows and put on the back of each chair. We are so excited to show you what we all came up with it's going to be super cute! We will have those posted by the end of next week.
We agreed we would use red glimmer paper and gold doilies with the idea that the invite would sit inside the card. So mom and 1st Class Creativity created the invites with the gold doilies, Stampin' Up! Glimmer paper and ribbon. 
When the 17 year old girl looked at it she liked it but thought that the gold doilies looked "too old" and the red glimmer paper was "too sparkly" for what she wanted. So we changed direction and came up with this!
When we knew she didn't like the larger doilies 1st Class Creativity showed her our Tea Lace Paper Doilies and how we could emboss them with our gold embossing powder. We showed her a sample and she immediately loved the idea! We had some left over wood that has long since been retired (you can buy similar balsa wood from your local craft store) so we used that for the base. We typed the details for the party on Very Vanilla card stock (rsvp number removed for privacy) and distressed the edges with Soft Suede ink. After we distressed the wood we cut the embossed the Tea Lace Paper Doilies with gold embossing powder then cut them in half and attached the doilies to the wood. Next we used Garden Green card stock to cover the back of the wood for a finished look. Next came the bows. We attached the back of the ribbon to the back of the garden green card stock so it wouldn't slip when we put the card into the clear envelopes. Then mom and daughter tied the bows. Yes, we are not good bow makers at 1st Class Creativity. When we do create the perfect bow it's like a party here! Definitely more a knot girl, and was thankful they were both very talented in bow making!
So that is how these DIY 18 year old birthday party invitations met shabby chic! Do you have a fun story to tell how how you created your own DIY party invitations? Leave a comment below we would love to have you share your story!
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |
