FREE printable: Disney World postcard party invitation

Remember Elise's birthday party invitations? I've gotten a couple of requests for the design I used on the back of the postcard, so I thought I'd offer it up as a free printable. Pair with a 4"x6" photo print on the front for quick handmade invitations.

I made up two versions of this 4"x6" invitation. If you are handy with design programs, download the JPG file. But if you're not, I also designed an interactive PDF form. Just type in your info and print on a 4"x6" card! Easy!

To save the file to your computer: click on the link below, and select File > Download.

Disney World postcard party invitation (JPG)

Disney World postcard party invitation (interactive PDF form)



This printable is for personal, non-commercial use only. Feel free to link to this blog post, but redistributing or selling the file or a printed version is not OK.

p.s. If you're looking for a Disney-ish font to use... The Walt Disney World retro logo font is called Florida Project and is free for non-commercial use. There are also so many Disney fonts at The Disney Experience.

Disney World Magic Kingdom birthday party: Invitations

First off, my Disney-loving husband would like you all to know that this party was not his idea. It was mine. That's true, and I'm willing to take credit. That said, he is doing a pretty good job of turning Elise and me into Disney nerds. (Yeah, it's happening. I'm surrendering.)

When I asked Elise what kind of birthday party she wanted, she would give me answers like a "house party" or a "shoes party." Basically, whatever was in front of her at the time, she would say and then add "party" to the end of it.

So with little to go on, I decided to honor her love of Mickey Mouse and Disney World. (We've visited twice in her short three years.) And the idea of a Magic Kingdom-inspired party was born.

And what better way to send an invite to a Magic Kingdom party than to send a postcard. (Well, a fake postcard.) Let's get started!

I always try to take a special photo for the invitation that no one has seen before. Not only to fit the theme of the party, but it's kind of a fun extra surprise for friends and family if they haven't already "liked" it on Facebook. It's nearly impossible to get young children to sit still for long and forget about posing. But if you take enough photos, you're bound to get something usable. I usually combine the photo shoot with a trip to the park or a run around the back yard so that everybody's happy.

I used Photoshop to add the border, the text and to tint the photo a bit so it looked glowy. Many photo websites will let you add borders or text to a plain photo print free, so something like this is not out of reach for those without graphic design software.

I got the photos printed at Target for 19 cents a piece. I normally don't do quick-photo places because I prefer matte prints, but for this, I thought the glossy finish suited the postcard concept.

For the back, I scanned an old Disney World postcard to get the logo and the castle. I used Photoshop to erase the parts I didn't want, and used it as a background for my party information.

I kind of mangled the words to the old Mickey Mouse Club theme song to suit my needs. I usually struggle with invitation wording, but this came easy.

I printed on some blank index cards (the kind without lines). They were already 4"x6" and so it was an easy, no-cutting way to create a back to the 4"x6" photo print. I think you can feed 4"x6" cards directly into most printers. Do a test run and adjust as needed.

After the ink was dry, I attached the print to the card with some scrapbooking adhesive. Easy and mess free.

The cost ended up being around 40 cents per invite/envelope. And it would have been less if I had stalked out a sale on photo prints, but I needed so few invites, it only would have saved a couple of bucks.

Update: 07/02/2012 - Get the free postcard printable!

p.s. The Magic Kingdom font is called Started by a Mouse and is free. The Walt Disney World retro logo font is called Florida Project and is free. And the scripty font I used is called Filmotype Jessy and is the only font I've ever paid for. Bought it a while ago for a yet-to-materialize project. Money well spent!

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See more Magic Kingdom party details!

Decorations	Activities

Favors, Part 1	Favors, Part 2

Numbers Birthday Party: The Invitations

Early on, I decided on a numbers theme for Elise's second birthday party. She can often be heard counting from one to ten over and over again or shouting out whatever digits she happens to see on an interstate exit sign or price tag. The girl loves numbers.

I found this number scrapbook paper and knew I had to use it for her invitations. It's so happy and festive. And it was on sale for 25 cents a sheet!

I found the coordinating orange paper in my stash, then discovered some leftover business-size envelopes, so I designed the invites to fit in those.

I took Elise's photo, cropped it to a square, changed it to black and white (the colors of the photo didn't really complement the colors of the paper), then printed a bunch of them out on photo paper. I left plenty of white space between the photos so I could cut them out to resemble a Polaroid.

I've been working on the same jumbo box of photo paper for like 10 years. The sheets have a bit of a curl to them, and I like how it pops the photo off the page a bit.

So the grand total for about 20 invites? 75 cents! Just three sheets of the numbers paper, and everything else I had on hand.

More Numbers Birthday Party posts

Decorations	Activities	Favors

Bridal shower: Handmade details

Over the weekend, my mom and I threw a bridal shower for my cousin's wife-to-be and I thought I'd show you a few of the handmade details.

First, the invitations. We found these Martha Stewart brand wedding cake stickers on clearance at Home Goods for $1 (for 20!) and thought they were perfect.

I mounted them to some silvery cardstock circles. Easy and elegant.

I made a simple banner from cardstock and a some pearl trim my grandma had. Sorry I don't have a better photo of the finished product. I have realized I am incapable of taking decent photos immediately preceding and/or during a party.

I printed the letters two to a sheet and cut them lengthwise. I glued on some scraps of grey cardstock on the bottoms, then I folded each paper and used a sewing machine to secure them onto the pearls.

For favors, we made wedding cake-shaped cookies, but they ended up looking a little like white Devo hats.

We packaged them up, and they looked better, but we decided they weren't good enough to stand on their own.

So the day before the shower, I scrambled to make a second favor, some decoupaged picture frames. It was a small shower with only 11 attendees, so it wasn't an impossible task. I'm kind of hating myself for not taking better photos of the frames. Each one had a different black and cream pattern and they looked really good all together.

You might appreciate the frames even more seeing what they started out as. I lucked out finding these frames in the Target dollar section ($2.50 for a pack of three). Juvenille and cheap-looking as-is, but they were flat (perfect for decoupage), had real glass and I loved the round openings.

First Birthday Party: The Invitations

Elise is having a party and you're invited! Can you believe this invitation started with a stationery kit from the dollar store?

I wasn't really feeling the navy blue, and was planning to leave the navy cards out entirely, but the reverse side of the scalloped cards was white. And I have been in love with scallops lately.

Such a cheerful color combination!

I took some coral/pink cardstock and cut it just a bit larger than the scalloped pieces (so the invites would still fit in the envelopes). I ran the green cards through the printer, then layered everything, using a small piece of coordinating patterned scrapbook paper.

I cropped a photo of Elise and printed a bunch on one page. Then I used a 2" circle punch to cut them out and added her photo with some adhesive foam (that also came in the dollar store kit) to give it some dimension.

I made 18 invitations and the total cost was about $6 with some paper and envelopes left over. Fancy invitations don't have to be expensive!