Pirate Themed Birthday

A year ago I did a CARNIVAL THEMED invitation for a the Gorman Family, all three of their children were born in the same month so it only makes sense to do one BIG party. I was thrilled when Krista emailed me a few months ago with this year's theme.......PIRATES! I cherish repeat clients because it forces you to exceed what you previously designed. Last year's design had layers and glitter; the worst mistake you can make as a designer is to become predictable. Even though I had a new theme to work with my goal was to design an invitation that would leave her guests wondering if she had hired a different designer to create her invitations this year.

My first thought was to use a single 7x7 square card stock with a tea stained background to give the look of a vintage map and list the party information on top but the more I looked at it the more generic it felt. What I wanted was a real map where the party details would represent what you may find on a real treasure map. I printed a test sample on white copy paper, folded it up and added some wrinkles....it was cute but the whole back was still white which bothered me. As I looked through some vintage maps online I had an idea..........what if I used parchment paper it has the perfect texture and can easily be distressed. Once I printed the design on the parchment paper and folded it up I had another thought...FIRE! By burning all the edges of the invitations by hand allowed me to give each individual invitation it's own distressed look.  I then paired it with a matte red envelope and continued the use of the pirate style fonts for the addresses.

Krista picked up the invites a few weeks ago and of course  LOVED them as much as I did but the real compliment came later.......Krista sent me an email that night because she wanted to tell me how impressed her husband Joe was with the design. I don't want to stereotype all husbands but lets face it picking out the perfect party invitation is NOT something that is on their minds. The fact that he was impressed truly means I did my job.