Party Planning 101- part 4

I hope this series is helpful! With the colors picked, mood set and plan in place, the next step is invitations. This is the first impression your guest will have of your party. It's your opportunity to create some excitement. It's really the beginning of your party!

Evites work great for many kinds of gatherings. I use them myself for less formal events like girls' night out and book club. However, for more important gathering, nothing is better than a printed invitation. It a little present or keepsake that arrives in your guest mailbox that will hang in their house and continuously remind them about something wonderful ahead.

For Charlotte's party, I was creating my own invitations. Generally, for my parties I prefer simple layouts, graphic shapes and clean lines. Along with picking colors, I needed to pick the patterns and image I wanted to use in the printables. The image was easy- simple, soft apple with a leaf. Gingham was the obvious choice for an apple of my eye party. I really struggled with it though because I did not want the party to become a harvest or to be predictable.  I tried really hard to incorporate it in a fresh way. I tried with several sizes and colors. I had ribbon and fabric that I was coordinating with as well.  Nothing seemed quite right. In fact some of them were horrible.

I wanted something modern almost preppy. I kept thinking of the shorts they have at J. Crew with the embroidered whales on them. That was what I wanted. So I took the apple images and turned it into my background paper. I need one more pattern to go with it.

I LOVED the stripe but I had found a cheap green gingham fabric that I wanted to use for tablecloths, so I went with that! 

This invitation set the exact mood I wanted for my party and was definitely worth the effort.

XO