When I suddenly realized I needed to move my daughter's dance party up a week, I had to come up with invitations quickly. Had to scratch some original ideas and find something I could put together in a day with what I had on-hand. I came up with a faux CD invite when I remembered I had a bunch of leftover CD jewel cases in the garage.
So last night minutes before the sun was setting, I had her run outside in front of the garage and "dance" for me. I might mention it was below freezing with snow and ice out. But you gotta do what you gotta do for a cute invite, right? I'll spare her the more embarrassing outtakes and skip to the photo we ended up using:
I purposely left a lot of "white space" on the left to add text. I was originally going to try to edit out the grid lines from the garage, but I think they actually add a little pattern that I liked. So that's what I told myself anyway to cut time =).
Next I formatted a super simple CD front in Microsoft Publisher. (Do they even make that anymore? Mine is the '98 version. Yep, it's all ultra-modern in the Storms household!) And when I say simple, I just added a CD "title" using a font called Multistrokes I downloaded free online. I added "volume 9" just to subtly add her age in there. I added a circle the size of a CD I measured and the center cut-out. I made the outside line a little wider and the interior hole a little smaller than the finished product since I planned on cutting with shape templates instead of cutting on the actual lines. These are just my guidelines to center against. I printed them out two on a page using photo paper I had to give it a nicer "CD" quality.
I used Fiskars' Ultra ShapeXpress with the Super Sized Circles template for the outer ring. I printed out the party info in a circle onto white cardstock and cut out the same. After glueing the two pieces together, back-to-back, I cut out out the interior ring with a smaller circle I found on the Bubbles template that happened to be the exact size for my cases. But you could, obviously, cut with scissors, craft knife, digital cutter, or circle cutter. I just need quickness!
We weren't concerned about mailing since my daughter is handing them out in person, but I would suggest a small CD mailer (obviously) or small padded envelope. This is just a fun way to set the stage for a dance (or any musical) birthday party. I'll be sharing more ideas from this party as we go along =).
