Invitations

As you probably can imagine, there are alot of birthday celebrations that go on in our house.  When my oldest was born, I never thought I would throw her a party every year, but that's exactly what I did for the first 4 years.  Then I realized that I would probably have to do the same for each consecutive child born into our family...and I scaled the partying down quite a bit.  We still celebrate them, but not with a huge bash every year.  In fact, my daughter has come to actually prefer a smaller gathering of her closest friends, so I just go with it.  :)

When I do throw a party, however, I like to take a little time and make special invitations that usually include a recent photo.  Since I'm a photographer, it's been a tradition with each of my children that we do a special photo session with them close to their birthday.  If this happens before the party, we can use a nice shot for the invites.  I open the photo in my editing software and add some simple text in a coordinating color and have it printed at my local photo store.  It only takes some time, creative thinking, and a few dollars to come up with something beautiful.

This is what I did last year for my daughter's birthday...

...and here are a couple more examples of what can be done for invites.

I hope these inspire you to make your own invitations using photographs!  Instead of your guests throwing them away, they become a nice keepsake to remember your child at that age.