One of my favorite aspects of the party planning process is developing the invitation! I am still a big believer in paper invites…especially when these days, almost nothing is sent by mail! I find that not only are party invitations just really fun to put together, but they set the tone and expectations for the entire soiree, and get the decor plan in motion! When I sat down to design the invites to our Sweet Pea baby shower…I just knew I wanted a baby somehow in a pea and for it to be green. The end result turned out to be one of the most precious things I’ve ever designed!

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Over the years, I’ve developed a tried-and-true method for making invitations that capture the party theme, are fun and whimsical, and are relatively simple to put together. My secret? Printed invites with some sort of paper/3D embellishment. You can see how I used this concept in these baby shower invites and these birthday party invites!

I started by playing around in the Cricut Design Space software. I try to only use images covered in my subscription. I had the pea pod shadow (the dark green image), but there was no image that worked well for a baby. After playing around a bit, I welded two circles together to create the pea body (light green) and then added the baby face from another cartridge. As soon as I saw this little guy (or girl?) come together, I knew I was off and running! I sized the pea pod to fit onto a 5×7″ card and cut a sample out of scrap paper.

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For most of my digital designing, I use Stampin’ Up’s digital scrapbooking software (My Digitial Studio). It’s not ideal, but I have it, it’s intuitive, and I can easily do pretty much everything I need! I started with a 5×7 card and added various text boxes. I worked at 100% and frequently held up my cutout pea pod to the computer screen to nudge text boxes to just the right spots. If you look, you can see how the pea pod baby will nestle right into the various text boxes…

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I typically have to print one or two drafts out onto paper and make a few adjustments before I print off the final invites and get assembling. Once I had my design finalized, I print and cut all my elements:

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  1. Green cardstock – cut down into 5×7″ rectangles
  2. Invites – printed onto glossy photo paper (this results in super nice quality printing!) then cut down to 4.5×6.5″ rectangles
  3. Pea pods – Cut all at once from dark green cardstock with my Cricut
  4. Pea bodies – Cut all at once from light green cardstock with my Cricut
  5. Baby faces – Cut all at once from light peach cardstock with my Cricut

Although the faces were “cut” into each face, they were a bit difficult to see. To make them stand out more, I simply used a fine-point pen to trace all the features. This immediately brought the little sleeping babies to life! I assembled the babies by first securing the bodies then the faces to the pea pod using roller adhesive!

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With the babies assembled, all I had to do was secure the babies to the white printed sheet, and then attach the white sheet to the green cardstock backing…all using roller adhesive!

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I couldn’t get over how adorable these invites turned out. Of all the crafts/hobbies I do, I don’t consider paper crafting one of my strengths. But every now and then, I knock one out of the park! Even if you aren’t hosting a Sweet Pea baby shower, these could be customized in other colors or themes! And even beyond baby showers, this print + cutout embellishment is a great way to set the tone for your next bash!

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And with that, I’m wrapping up the Sweet Pea baby shower! If you missed it, be sure to check out the party reveal here and the making of post here!

I’ve been feeling a little DIY/blogger burnout in recent weeks. Juggling a lot of projects, makeovers, and assignments all in the face of our next move has me a bit worn out. I’m going to take the next week off as my own little Spring Break, to re-charge, relax, and work ahead a bit! I’ve got a lot of really FUN projects coming up before we start to pack boxes…so I will see you back here on Monday, April 13th!!!

Have a great weekend!

Megan

See You Soon!
Megan