Under the Sea Handmade Series - Invitations

My middle daughter (soon to be Miss 5) decided she would like a Mermaid Party like her older sister had - the only problem with that is :a) I get bored doing the same party over & over again, and
b) I don't want her to look back later and think I just re-did her older sisters parties for her (no need to aggravate the middle child syndrome!)

So I suggested that we instead do an "Under the Sea" party, which also worked out better as she was inviting a number of boys to her party and I'm not sure how many of them would want to come dressed as mermaids???

Now that the theme was decided, it was time to come up with an invitation that had a bit of a wow factor, but was still cheap to make (because lets face it, once the party is over, those invitations are going in the bin), which brings me to my handmade "Under the Sea" invite.

To make this, you will need the following (I made 20 invites with these supplies and it took me approx. 2 hours fro start to finish) :

• Paper CD holders - I already had these on hand (used them to hold giant cookies for teacher gifts one year).  I found them at a cheap store - 100 for $2
• 4 Containers of cheap clear hair gel ($2 a container)
  
• A scenic background - I purchased this background as I was in a hurry and it was exactly what I wanted, but if I had more time, then I would have searched the free pics available online and used those
• Card stock you can put through your printer - you could use normal printer paper, but I wanted some extra weight to support the CD case a bit
• Some small under the sea beads that I purchased off eBay - I got 50 for $5 including delivery (can't really beat that!).  If you didn't want to buy them, then some cute small sea shells straight off the beach would be very effective
• Zip lock bags - I made sure the ones I purchased did not have the white strip across them that you write on

And here is how it's done

1. Create or edit your scene in Power Point (or whatever program you use).  I changed the shape of my background to a circle and made it just larger than the circle on the CD cover
2. At this time, I also created the back of the invite with all the invitation details, again using Power Point and made the square just slightly smaller than the CD Cover
3. I then roughly cut around the circle and used double sided tape to stick it inside my CD envelope.
4. Next I scooped a really large tablespoon of hair gel into the zip lock bag and added in about 10 of my tiny glittery sea creatures.  I pressed all the air out of the bag and sealed it.  Once the bag was sealed, I smooshed all the gel and sea creatures to one corner at the bottom of the zip lock bag and folded some of the side of the bag in on itself and held it in place with a tiny bit of sticky tape at the top (this was necessary as my bags were wider than my CD covers - don't worry, you won't notice it once it's in the CD cover).
   
   My original intent was to use the seal of the zip lock to ensure no gel came out, but I didn't like the bulk the seal added to the invite, so once it was sealed I actually put sticky tape around the top of the bag (just below the seal) and cut the seal off.  I then used more sticky tape over the top to ensure no gel got out.
   
   At this point your invite is not looking so pretty with all that tape on it, but don't worry as it gets hidden once it goes into the CD cover
5. Put the zip lock bag into the CD case (making sure the side folded edge is at the back so you can't see it from the front ) .  I then just folded the leftover bag at the top and taped it down.  I then taped the flap of the CD cover down as well - again, not very pretty, but we cover it up!
6. Take your the square invite details page that you printed out and stick it right over the back, covering up all the tape & leftover zip lock bag in the process!  I started off using double sided sticky dots to hold the pieces to the back but ran out and used good old glue and that held just fine.
   
   And that's it, effective invites for not much money :)
   
   Coming up next up for this party is the birthday girls outfit - again with a how to included