I Almost Forgot...

So there I was in my last post being all down on myself for not having done as many handmade elements as I would have liked... and I almost forgot two MAJOR projects that I did make!

The Invitations

These were made from a pack of colored card-making cardstock, white printer paper, some staple, my computer and my printer. All I pretty much did was find some cute clip art for the dinosaur and enlarged it in my word-processing software. (I formatted the document to have two columns in landscape format so I could fit two dinos per page.)

The trickiest part was getting the text on the back (not featured in the photos for privacy reasons) to align with the shape of the dinosaur. To do this I formatted another document with the same page settings listed above and then just played around with the spacing of each line. It was a little tricky but after a couple tries, I got it!

The egg was made by folding a piece of white computer paper in half the "hotdog" way and then again the "hamburger way. Then, starting at the folded edge, I cut curved up to form the sides of the egg. A little zig-zag action across the top and tah-dah! You've got two eggs. Now just staple up the sides, snuggle in your dino-invite and you're all set!

The Thank-You's

These thank you's are another simple, cost-efficient way to make cards in bulk. Again, I formatted my document into two columns and turned to trusty clip-art to find a dinosaur and a speech-bubble image. It took a bit of fussing around with the image property settings so that one image didn't cover up the other, but I figured it out eventually.

On the back (again not featured for privacy reasons) I had typed up a little blurb thanking each child for their gift and some details about the fun we've had playing with the toy/game thus far.

 To add some color (since I don't have a colored printer) I used a rubber stamp that said, "Thanks a million!" in green ink to fill in the speech bubble.

Then came my son's job. He colored ALL the dinosaurs (a couple with a little motivational help from me) AND wrote his name (all by himself) on EVERY SINGLE ONE. That's 18 cards to be exact.

Although I'll openly admit my primary motivation in taking this route with both sets of cards was a financial one (Those store bought cards are expensive!) both my son and I greatly enjoyed the process. Not only will these items be more meaningful to us but also more memorable to the guests. And hey, it's fun to have a chance to show off some creative flair too!