Bachelorette Invitations!!

So it has been a while since I have blogged...a lot has happened :)  My husband and I went to a wedding and I baked one of the cakes.  It was a pink lemonade cake and it was DELICIOUS.  I'll blog the recipe someday :)  The wedding was so beautiful.  It was outside in the mountains of NC on a family farm.  There were sunflowers growing in the background of the ceremony and we sat on hay bails...it was so cute.

We also went to Smith Mountain Lake and then to the mountains of Northern Virginia for my maternal side's family reunion. We tent camped and enjoyed the outdoors.  It was a fun four days.

Now to the subject of this post...
My beautiful cousin is getting hitched in September and I made invitations for her bachelorette party based on some things I saw on pinterest.  Here is a tutorial of how I did it.

I needed 18 invitations so here is a list of supplies:

18 pieces of black 8 1/2" x 11" card stock
1 piece of a 8 1/2" x 11" card stock of a contrasting color for template
9 pieces of white 8 1/2" x 11" card stock
9 sheets of silver scrapbook paper (I used 12x12 and cut it down to size)
2 sheets of hot pink 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock
clear stamps (numbers and letters)
silver ink
lace ribbon with pearls
hot pink ribbon (1/4 inch) I used about 1 and a half spools of 10 yrd
scissors
a pencil
a ruler
a hole punch
hot glue gun
glue stick

I started by making a template for the outside paper. I measured 2 and 5/8 of an inch from the left side of the paper (landscape) and made a tic mark for the fold.  I did the same on the right side and folded the paper so that the flaps were the measured width.  I then measured 6 inches from the bottom of the paper and marked each flap on the edge.  This is where I would draw the diagonal for the cutouts to make it look like a corset.

I drew a line using  a ruler and a pencil from the top left corner to the mark on the edge of the left flap and did the same for the right.  I cut out the triangles.  Next, I used the ruler and measured to make the holes that the ribbon would lace through.  If you spend the time on the template, the rest of the actual parts are cake.  The edge of each flap is now 6 inches long so I made a dot with my pencil 1/2 inch up from the bottom and then on each inch until I reached the 5 1/2 mark on my ruler.  I repeated this for the other flap.  Using the hole punch, I punched out where I had made the marks.  The template comes out like this (please excuse my messy craft table...):

 
Make sure you make good creases in the paper.  I use the handle of my scissors to crease my paper.

I laid the template onto the black card stock and marked it to look like this:

Then I folded the paper and cut across the diagonal and punched out holes where I had dotted

Next I set out to make little bustiers to put my cousin's bra and panty size for those who wanted to get her lingerie.  I drew out a template on heavy card stock and traced it 18 times onto the hot pink paper.

To make the template I used a giant glue stick as my top "boob" circles.  I then used the ribbon spool for the sides.  I used the glue stick again for the leg holes.  It was pretty easy once I drew that out.  I then cut out all the little bustiers

Next I stamped on my cousins bra and panty size with clear stamps and silver ink.

I found some super cute lace ribbon at Michaels that had pearls sewn onto it.  I figured I could make half of the bustiers lacy and the other half trimmed in pearls.  I plugged in my hot glue gun while I cut the pearl string off of the ribbon.

I measured the pearl strings and lace to fit on the top of each bustier.  Then I clipped each piece of lace in the middle about 3/4 of the way so it would curve around the bra top.

I hot glued the lace to the back of each bustier and the pearls to the front.  When I finished they looked like this:

I made a really layout for the invitation itself using Microsoft Publisher.  I put two to a page to save paper and printed them on the white card stock.  I then cut them all out along the border.  They were just over 4" x 6 1/2"

I measured and cut the silver card stock to about 5"x7 1/2".  Since I used 12" x12" I was able to get two from each piece.

I glued the silver paper down first, then glued the printed paper on top.  I glued the bustier to the inside flap so that people could see it when they opened the invitation.  Make sure not to cover your holes and leave room for the fold!

Next, I cut the hot pink ribbon into about 28 inch pieces.  I used a lighter to barely melt the ends to keep them from fraying while I laced the invitation.  Then I laced it up and tied it in a bow!

I hope you all can give this a try!  If you're not a crafty person but you still want these for a bachelorette party I would be glad to make them for you.

Here is the finished product again: