The first DIY aspect of Keri’s baby shower was the invitations. 

My older sister and I went to Michael’s to buy supplies for invitations.  She had a sample of a store bought invitation that she thought we could make ourselves.  It was a cute invitation in the shape of a diaper.  It appeared to be simple enough to replicate.  We found a stack of cardstock paper in the scrapbooking section.  The sheets were 8×8 and double-sided cute baby girl patterns.  It was very close to the overall size of the sample invitation, just a bit smaller.  The stack of papers was the only supply we had to buy.  I had everything else I needed in my supplies at home.  In order to get started, I needed to revise the template since our 8×8 paper was smaller than the sample.  I used plain paper and after just a few minor adjustments developed my sample template.

I used the template as my guide to trace onto the printed paper and cut around the outside with regular scissors.  The next step was to use the scalloped edged scissors from my scrapbooking supplies.  The scalloped edges are from the top template.  I cut from the middle fold line up around the “flaps” and stopped right after the curve, where the flaps would then fold.  I did this on both sides.  I think in the picture below you can see where the fold lines are in relation to the scalloped edges a little easier than in the template.

Then, I used an exacto knife to cut the straight slices.   I didn’t draw  the lines for that, because they became hard to erase on the patterned paper, so I just used a straight-edge.  After that was complete, I folded as indicated and it was now the complete outside shape.  I did each step in an assembly line, so that I was using my regular scissors for a while, then the scalloped scissors and then the exacto knife.  I will admit that it did get a bit tedious.  Fortunately, the timing worked out for me and I was participating in Arts & Crafts day at my work, so I took all my supplies and got the majority of them made in one sitting. 

For the invitation wording, I used Word and selected a label template (Avery Standard, 5164 Shipping) to set up my document.  This made 6 sections per page, and they were the perfect size for the text.  After I created the text, I just printed them on plain paper and used scalloped scissors to cut them out.  Then, I used scrapbooking adhesive tape to secure the text to the cardstock.  Below is the inside (I blurred out certain aspects for privacy).

Please feel free to download and print the templates.  I hope they print out correctly.  These are the first templates I have made and blogged about, so if they don’t print correctly and you know how to fix that, just let me know and I will change it…as long as it is within my technical abilities. 🙂