Make some beach-themed invitations to be creative and save money.
If you are having a beach party or a wedding on the beach, you will probably want some invitations with a beach theme. Buying premade invitations will save you time, especially if you want to invite many people, but you won't be saving money. Making your own beach-themed invitations grants you the freedom to make them look the way you want, and you can use a computer and a simple graphic editing program to help you save time.
Instructions
1. Cut pieces of white 8-inch by 10-inch card stock in half, widthwise. Cut as many as you need for your invitations. Fold all of the half-pieces of card stock in half again, lengthwise. Set these folded cards off to the side.
2. Measure the front of one of these folded cards and subtract about 1 inch from the width and height of this measurement. Open a graphic editing program on your computer and create a new document that is the size that you determined, in inches.
3. Download a public-domain clip-art image or a free stock photo (see Resources) of a beach scene and open it in the graphic editing program. Copy and paste the image on the new document, select the "Transform" tool and stretch the image to fit. Select the text tool and type the words that you want to be on the front of the invitations. Select the appropriate font size and the font that you want from the drop-down menus. Save the cover image.
4. Print the cover image out on white card stock. Select the printing option to have four of the images printed on one piece of paper to save paper. Divide the number of invitations by four to figure out how many pages to print.
5. Create another new document in the program and fill out the text that you want on the inside of the invitations. Choose the font and font size and type each line, such as the date, time, location and any other information the guests need to know. Save the text. Have four of the text documents printed out on one page, as you did in Step 4.
6. Dip a sponge brush into some Mod Podge and brush a thin layer over the beach scenes you printed out--this protects the ink from running. Let the Mod Podge dry completely.
7. Brush a thin layer of Mod Podge on certain areas of the beach scene that you want to make sparkle, such as the sun, sand or water of the ocean. Sprinkle fine glitter over the image so that it sticks to the Mod Podge. Shake it around slightly to make sure the glitter is even and dump the excess glitter back into the glitter container. Set it aside to dry.
8. Cut out each beach scene with scissors and glue them to the front of each card with a glue stick. Do the same with each text image that you printed out, but glue these to the inside of the card, on the right side. Let the glue dry before mailing your homemade beach-themed invitations.
Tags: that want, beach scene, beach-themed invitations, card stock, editing program, graphic editing, graphic editing program