Invitations the cheap way

We're having a small get-together this Saturday for Levi's birthday. To make the invitations, I found a basic one I liked on Tiny Prints (the one I picked is here). Then, I just used Microsoft Publisher to recreate it myself. I uploaded my creation onto Snapfish as a picture and ordered the appropriate number of prints. Voila--easy invitations for 10 cents each instead of over a dollar each!

Here's my creation:



Here are some more detailed instructions if you need them. (These are intended for those of you without awesome programs like Photoshop and also without amazing computer skills!)

• Open Publisher and start with a custom-sized blank page; I did mine 4 inches by 6 inches, since that was the size invitation/picture I wanted to end up with
• Using the Objects/shapes toolbar, create some rectangles--one in the upper left corner, one spanning the bottom half. To color them in, double click on a rectangle and choose the "fill" and "line" colors. You'll notice I left a little bit of space between each of my rectangles; this created the white space you see.
• Again using the shapes toolbar, select a circle and create one the size you like. Color it appropriately, then copy/paste it several times and line them up to create a line of circles. Group all of those circles together by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each circle. After you click on each one, right click on one of them and select "Group." Now copy/paste the line of circles twice, and you have three lines of circles. Arrange appropriately.
• Create another, larger circle; fill it with white and make the line the same color as the circles at the bottom of the invite. Put it in the upper left-hand rectangle.
• Create a text box by clicking "Insert" then "Text Box." Put the text box in the top rectangle and create the text you want (e.g., "It's Levi's 1st birthday!") in the font you like (mine is called Pupcat and I got it from 1001freefonts.com). Color the text by highlighting it and choosing the font color.
• Create another text box to put inside the white circle, and type a 1 (or appropriate number) in the font and color you like.
• Now it's time for the wording in the bottom rectangle. I used WordArt, which is the "A" on the Objects toolbar. (You could also just insert another text box.) If you use WordArt, click the A on the toolbar, choose the type of WordArt you want, then type in your text, including line breaks. After you click OK, you can arrange the WordArt as desired and also right-click on it, format it and choose colors.
• The black text at the bottom of my invite is just a text box.
• Find a cute picture, and copy/paste it into your Publisher file. Resize it and crop it so it fits in the upper right-hand space you've so far left empty. (Resizing and cropping can be done using the Picture toolbar in Publisher.)
• Once everything is arranged how you'd like, you have to group everything together. Hold down the Ctrl key and press A. (This should highlight all items.) Then right-click and choose "Group Objects."
• Now right-click on the invitation, and choose "Save As Picture." Choose a name for your new picture file, and make sure to Save As Type: JPEG.

Now you have a picture file for your invitation, ready to upload to Snapfish or Shutterfly or print out on your computer. :)