BBQ Invitations

Hello again! I'm so excited to share with you the set of barbeque invitations I made a couple of weeks ago. The town where I work held a street fair last weekend, and the teachers association had a table where they were raffling off summer-themed baskets, so I told my boss (who was making the basket for our school) that I would donate a set of handmade invitations. Yay! :D I am SO pleased with the results, especially since I forgot how many BBQ-themed items I had in my stash!

I've had the red plaid paper by DCWV forever- it came in an assortment of DCWV stuff, and I never knew what to do with it. I thought it would be perfect for this occassion- it gives that picnic-y summertime feel, plus I used up two sheets! Yesss. :) I used some red scraps from the baby shower invitations and black paper that I bought from the dollor store (a journal made for those milky gel pens). I used a variety of stamps on these invitations:

hot dog and hamburger: JanLynn (LOVE this set!)
grill: Rubber Soul
"you're invited": Creative Cafe
"BBQ": Studio G

I also added some mustard yellow ribbon (finished up the spool, by the way!) and a ribbon slider cut out with my Cuttlebug, on top of which I used some silver ink (Color Box) to stamp the "BBQ" sentiment. I did the same thing with the "you're invited" sentiment, on top of the Stampin' Up! tab punched piece.

I was having so much fun with my invites that I thought it would be swell to decorate the inside of the card as well. I used up another (and my last!) sheet of the red plaid paper, added the "Please Join Us" image (also from Rubber Soul) to some more black paper, and added a couple of ants! The ants came from a swap, and I think they were the perfect touch to that open area. I think if I didn't decorate the inside of the card, it would look too white and boring :)

To package the inviations, I bought some clear bags at Michael's. I thought there were going to have a sticky strip on the back so I could seal them, but they didn't, so I had to resort to making a fun topper. I used some blue grid paper by Colorbok (Friend Forest collection), a ribbon from Target, and my new EK Success border punch/embosser (I can't get enough of this punch!) on another red scrap. I used a giant address label to print the information and voila! A handmade package of BBQ invitations! :D

I'm so happy with the way these turned out- I hope whoever won the basket enjoys them! Thanks for checking in, I hope you have a fabulous Saturday! :D

-Suzanne :O )