Peacock Birthday Invites

I don't know who enjoys my daughter's birthday more. Of course she gets the party in her honor, picks the theme, and gets the presents, but I get to decorate, coordinate, and come up with all the fun creative elements. This year she wanted to continue her passion for all things turquoise and purple and have a peacock themed party. Today I am putting together the invitations as they must, must, must be handed out tomorrow at school (her words exactly).

I first made a fully-functioning fan invite that pulled open by string to reveal a peacock. Great in theory but which came out looking horrible. Really horrible. Back to the drawing board, and the completely redesigned invite was made simpler, with no moving parts, and more in keeping with what a birthday invite should be. And it still meets her criteria:

• has a peacock on it
• mostly turquoise
• a ton of crafty bits
• obviously homemade

For the peacock at the bottom, I used two pieces of felt layered to make the body and loops of satin ribbon for the feathers. All are sewn down roughly on the machine to hold in place. I glued down a crystal eye in aqua for a bit of "bling."

For the backing, I used a piece of flocked cardstock cut to 10x5 inch size. The text was created in my office package and printed in eggplant purple ink, cut out and stitched down on either side. Once the stitching was done to the face of the card, I added another 10x5 piece to the back (flocked sides facing out) and zig-zagged around the edge to hold the two together. Now all my cut threads were carefully sandwiched in between out of sight, and the invite has a lovely texture when you hold it. I love soft and fuzzy on the fingers- don't you?

One down, 15 more to go. Yes, that's right. We are inviting 15 girls to her slumber party (one invite is extra for her scrapbook). Am I being a bad mother by admitting I hope they don't all RSVP yes?