Dylan's Hello Kitty Birthday Invitations

This past August, I got an email from my cousin, Melissa, to see if I could design birthday invitations for her daughter's Hello Kitty themed 1st birthday. I was really excited to start the design and had the following requests from Melissa: square invitation, big Hello Kitty face, simple but pretty, pinks & purples, and some glitter additions. I played around with drawing Hello Kitty and thought that the best way to display any text would be to have Hello Kitty holding a purple ribbon banner with pink glittered hearts!

The invitation was digitally printed, with hand-glittered pink hearts and bow, mounted onto lavender metallic cardstock, and paired with square pink envelopes.

It's a simple invitation, but I think they turned out to be very cute!!

~Emilie

Night at the Museum Birthday Invitations

This past January, I was contacted by Alice to create another set of birthday invitations for her daughter, Emma. Last year, I created these carnival invitations for her, and this year there was a brand new theme: Night at the Museum. The party was held at the Miami Science Museum (how cool is that??) and Alice gave me a few suggestions for elements to include such as planets, dinosaurs, and a scavenger hunt. It took me a while to play around with how to fit all of these together, and I really love the end result.

I wanted it to seem like you were on another planet, with the Earth in the background behind the sand dunes, hand drawn telescope, menacing T-Rex, and dinosaur prints in the sand. The stars make it seem like it's night time, even though the invitation is white, and that makes it easy to read the invitation details and the poem for Emma's big day. I also created matching thank you cards, which Emma will write out herself after her big party.

If you are interested in these invitations or another custom design, please contact me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com!

~Emilie

A 30th Anniversary Celebration at Brasserie JO

Sometimes you hear of huge 50th birthday celebrations, and many times it's the spouse that ends up planning a lavish event for family and friends. But, when is the last time you heard of a couple's children throwing them an anniversary party? Pretty rare, right? When Fiona (yes, Pink Orchid's very own wedding coordinator!) told me that she and her sister wanted to throw their parents a 30th Anniversary Party, I thought it was the sweetest thing, and wanted to help in any way possible. After visiting a lot of venues and perusing through dozens of menus, Fiona decided that Brasserie JO would be the perfect spot for a dinner celebration with her parents' closest friends.

Guests were able to choose from a delicious menu of three appetizers, two salads, four entrées, and three desserts. I created invitations, menu cards, and place cards for the event, and there were welcome toasts, and lots of memories shared about Johnny and Carol throughout the night. Each guest also received a favor of two kinds of Tea Forté packaged in a little clear box, tied with a silver satin ribbon bow.

Everyone had a wonderful time, and it was so nice to be able to participate in such a great event!

~Emilie

Remy's Candyland Birthday Invitations

Ever since I created the carnival birthday invitation last year, I've gotten a lot of requests for similar types of invitations in different colors, or with different wording, like a county fair, instead of a carnival. Melissa contacted me in March to design the invitations for her daughter's first birthday, but wanted to incorporate a Candyland theme into the existing carnival invitation.

I loved the idea, and incorporated things that she was planning to have at the party, like cotton candy, penant flags, pinwheels, huge lollipops, a candy buffet, and a cupcake piñata! I also included a colorful walkway similar to the Candyland board game. The invitations were made of a pearlescent metallic white cardstock, with a light pink metallic cardstock backing, and fuchsia metallic envelopes. The cotton candy, the candy buffet, and the little flower on the cupcake were all hand-glittered to give the invitations some extra texture and sparkle.

I love how colorful the invitation is, and the shades of pink make it very girly =)

~Emilie

Carnival Themed Thank You Cards

One fact of life is that kids nowadays have lots of carnival themed birthday parties. I've created carnival invitations in all sorts of colors for clients with air pumped jumphouses across the country, and it has now extended to the matching carnival themed thank you card. I've blogged about a couple of these invitations before here and here.

Recently, Alice requested purple carnival invitations and thank you cards for her daughter's 8th birthday party next month. The thank you card has two little carnival tickets with "thank" and "you" on them, along with a ferris wheel with Emma's first initial on all of the little seats. The purple lines on the card are guidelines for Emma, because she will be writing the thank you's herself! The invitations and cards are made of a pearlescent white metallic cardstock, and are paired with lavender metallic envelopes.

If you are interested in these thank you cards or a custom design for your next event, please contact me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com!

~Emilie

Pink Carnival Birthday Invitations!

Last month, I blogged about the fun carnival theme birthday invitations that I created for Hudson here. Since then, I've gotten requests for similar invitations, and for one particular client, she loved everything about it, but just requested that I add a bit more pink for her daughter, who LOVES pink!

Even though I know you have seen this invitation before, I thought it would be a nice way to show how color can transform the look of an invitation. I changed the original blue and orange color combination to a hot pink and light pink color combination. The lights on the ferris wheel along with the cotton candy were hand-glittered, and the invitation was made of a pearlescent white metallic cardstock. Paired with a pink envelope, this invitation is ready for any little girl's birthday party!

Any invitation from Pink Orchid Designs can be completely customized to the colors that you like, or changed around to suit the needs for your particular event. Email me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com for more information!

~Emilie

Carnival Theme Birthday Invitations

Hudson's Birthday Invitations: Part II

In my previous blog entry here, I went through the design process for some pretty cool Star Wars birthday invitations. When else would I have the opportunity to create glittering light sabers? Then, I found out that Hudson changed his mind about Star Wars, and what did he pick instead? A Carnival Theme! Melissa said that there would be things like cotton candy, a jump house, and face painters. I instantly got thinking about carnivals that I've been to and after discussing some other elements with her, it was time to sketch out some ideas.

Everything was so different than the types of things I draw for wedding invitations, so this was a fun challenge for me. I started sketching out tents, admission tickets, ferris wheels, cotton candy, balloons, and little signs to point to other fun activities. Then I began trying to come up with ideas on how to put all of those ideas on one invitation without it looking really randomly placed. The main issue that I ran across was that there were too many ideas to fit on one 5" x 7" invitation, especially because I had to include information like when and where the party was. So, I opted out of the tent, and came up with the following invitation.

I created blue and orange carnival admission tickets with "Hudson" in place of the ticket numbers. The ferris wheel seats had "H" on them to personalize them for Hudson's birthday. The lights on the ferris wheel were hand-glittered in orange and blue to match the lettering. There were signs pointing to different activities that they will actually have at the birthday party, with some colorful balloons tied to the signs. There was also a cotton candy machine where I hand-glittered the cotton candy in blue and pink. To link all of the elements together, they are all on a path surrounded by grass, so it looks like the ferris wheel is in the distance, and you are only seeing one small part of the carnival.

Aren't these invitations super cute? They are made of a pearlescent white metallic cardstock, with an onyx black metallic cardstock backing. The onyx black metallic envelopes matched the invitation perfectly, and the 35 guest names were hand-lettered in block letters and white ink. Melissa was really happy with how these turned out, and in my opinion, Hudson was able to be the coolest five-year-old to pass out invitations in black metallic envelopes to his classmates at school. If you're interested in these invitations or another custom design, contact me at info@pinkorchiddesigns.com!

~Emilie

Star Wars Birthday Party Invitations

Hudson's Birthday Invitations: Part I

Or should I say Episode I? I recently received a request from Melissa to design her son's 5th birthday party invitations. She told me that Hudson wanted a Star Wars themed party, and other than rule of "wanting them cute", I was free to come up whatever I wanted. Star Wars is pretty different from the normal wedding invitations that I design, so I tried to think of different elements that I could draw out well. Yoda was pretty much out of the question, but I thought some glowing light sabers might do the trick.

Here is the actual sketch that I used to come up with the concept. I drew out different light sabers for Hudson vs. Darth Vader, and also came up with an idea to have a curve of black in the corner of the invitation with stars on both sides. This was to introduce a planet shape effect, and give the illusion that the text and light sabers were actually floating in space.

After working in Adobe Illustrator, I realized that two corners of this planet shape would make the planet look like a football, so I decided to just go with one corner. I found some great Star Wars fonts and made the 5th Birthday Party a Star Wars Episode, starring Hudson of course. The two light sabers were personalized with "H" and "DV" for Hudson and Darth Vader. I also included hand-glittered elements for all of the stars and the light sabers. I also added a few stormtroopers in for fun. This invitation is on pearlescent white metallic cardstock with a onyx black metallic cardstock backing.

So now, why did I name this part I? Well, after Melissa loved this design, and we finalized everything about it, Hudson changed his mind about the Star Wars party, and wanted something else. I told Melissa not to worry, and I would design her a new invitation for the new theme. I decided to make one of these Star Wars invitations for fun anyways so I could share it with you all on the blog, and in my opinion, the actual invitations for part II are even better! Stay tuned to find out what Hudson picked out for his birthday party theme!

~Emilie