Monday, December 3, 2012

Matryoshka Birthday Party

When Marilee was about a month old my mother in law nicknamed her "Dolly." Since then, not a week goes by without someone commenting that she looks like a doll or is a doll.So naturally a doll themed party was in order. I started pinning Raggedy Anne and Matryoshka doll party ideas.  I love both themes equally, but the gift of this dinnerware sold me on Matryoshka for this year.

I am going to blog one feature of the party a day. That way it will be manageable enough to actually complete.  Today I will start with the invitation.

A quick google seach of Matryoshka invites will result in lots of really great ideas and even a few free downloads. Seriously, one thing is cuter than the next. I used several ideas from these searches for inspiration, but ultimately designed the invite all by myself.

one finger

 When I found this picture in my camera, I knew it had to be a photo invite. Creating my own invites also taught me a thing or two about digital scrapbooking. For starters, I purchased this digital clipart of matryoshkas. Then I also downloaded several freebies from Sahlin Studio.  Paying just a few dollars for the matryoshka clip art allowed me to make lots of small party elements and keep the same few doll images.

 marilee invite

I created the picture in Pic Monkey. First I uploaded the background image from Sahlin Studios. Then I added overlays of all the other elements. Finally, I added the text.  Then I uploaded the whole thing to Snapfish and ordered postcards. I was able to order just ten. Those folks who don't use email, the grandparents and her godmother all got a hard copy. Eveyone else got an email evite.

 craft frame marilee w doll
To save time and money I used www.evite.com.  To customize the evite, I used PicMonkey and specifically the "overlays feature" which even allows you to upload your own overlays. Doing this allowed me to establish the theme while still using a fairly limited template from the evite program.

Using evite was pretty successful and I would do it again. Having a few hardcopy invites was also great. So I did appreciate that I could order just ten postcards.


Stay tuned for other party elements.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Oh, my beloved Gran always called me Dolly Girl. Sniff.