Quixotic Designs: Invitation Compilation Debut

{all boxed up and ready to be mailed}

I think by now it is safe to post pictures of my recent creations without spoiling the surprise for anyone involved... so allow me to introduce you to what the philosopher refers to as my insane procrastination effort: baby shower invitations.

Technically, there were six different variations of the design that got mailed out and two different stamp designs. But, for all intensive purposes I think of the invitation as having 3 main variations with a little something extra thrown in for the {great!(grand)parents}, the aunts, and the uncles-to-be.

All of the invitations sent out had four essential components: The letter-pressed lion invitation with blue ink (printed on sustainable bamboo paper) from Smock; a personalized letter-pressed elephant enclosure card from Dingbat Press; a hand stamped, double-sided light blue insert that included directions to the shower, registry information, and a special request for guests; and one or two *super cute* stamps from Cakespy's Zazzle shop.

The elephant enclosure cards were not just for looks - - I especially want to orient the shower towards personal relationships and I thought I'd lay the groundwork by asking the guests to share something personal. I included the guest's name(s) on the bottom of the envelopes to add a personal touch to the invites and just in case someone fills out the card but forgets to sign, the new parents will know who it was from!

There was a "ruffle ribbon" version:


{at the very end I ran out of white ruffle ribbon and had to use a bright ivory ruffle ribbon for a couple invitations *technically* yielding two variations - - fortunately, the ivory looks white until compared directly against the actual white ribbon!}


There was a "jungle leaf ribbon" version:


{Since the ribbon was reversible, it *technically* yielded two variations.}



There was a "paper bag" version:


no frilly ribbon just a cute little paper bag to hold
the lion invitation, the elephant enclosure card, and the blue insert.


There were 7 extra special invitations for the parents-to-be,
three aunts-to-be, two uncles-to-be,
two sets of grandparents-to-be,
and one pair of great! grandparents-to-be.

For them, I put the invitation in an unsealed "inner" envelope, then encased it in blue tissue paper, and housed the whole shebang in a special little box. Partly I did this because the little chartreuse boxes were just so cute (but too expensive to mail to everyone!). But also it was important to me that these invitations not get too banged up in transit. After all, if anyone is going to save these invites it'll likely be someone especially close to the parents-to-be and the new baby.

And there were two stamp variations:

A "cuppies & owl" stamp version and a
"where the wild (and sweet) things are" stamp version.
{I really wanted to use these stamps too
because they're soooooooooooooooooo cute
but there just weren't enough invitations to merit the extra sheet.
I'll have to think of something else to mail! wink, wink}

All in all there were 29 shower invitations.
I can't wait to see how many people show up to the main event!!