Cheap Invitation Ideas
Posted by kim on March 19, 2009
With my twins getting confirmed and my son graduating in the coming months, it’s going to be party central at our home. So as I am procrastinating on the cleaning aspect, I know I need to get invitations sent out.
When I find invitations on clearance, I stock up for various events. I knew I had bought confirmation invitations from the Factory Card & Party Outlet at 75%, so I went to my “free room” to find them and could only find one package. But I did find 30th birthday party invitations (got 90% off from Hallmark) that I had 
intended to use for my brother’s 30th birthday party, but obviously forgot I had them! But my cousin’s 30th birthday is coming up, and we plan to use them for that.
So, initially I went to the Dollar Tree (where “Everything’s $1″) to look for invitations. They have a lot of choices (ie birthday invitations, baby shower invitations, wedding shower invitations, baptism invitations, etc), but none that actually said “Confirmation”. I did buy some generic white invitations with gold/silver embossing, and planned to use them, until…
I went to Target and scoped out the clearance end-caps (as I always do) and found some Club Wedd Printable Invitations marked down to $4.37 (regularly $17.49). The box included 50 invitations, 50 response cards, 50 invitation envelopes, 50 response card envelopes and 2 test sheets. I know these are meant to use for weddings, but they are totally void of any indication of such. I downloaded the free software templates to make some awesome looking confirmation invitations. And I think I’ll let the girls use the smaller cards intended to use as response cards for Thank You notes.
As for my son’s graduation invitations, I did order the basic official invitation package from the school through Josten’s, but will use those just for grandparents and mementos. I intend to upload pictures to Vistaprint and order 100 free postcards. I have ordered these several times to use for invitations, even Christmas cards. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to upload one picture to fill up the entire backside or if I’ll use one of their free templates and add a few pictures, including some cute baby pics. Plus with postcards, I’ll save a ton on postage. I’m even thinking of then ordering free postcards for him to use as Thank You’s with a picture of him in his graduation cap and gown!
Note that postage rates are increasing again on May 11th, 2009! If you buy the “Forever Stamp” now for 42¢ each, you will still be able to use those for first class mail when the price increases to 44¢.
Now, does anyone wanna come over and help me clean my house for the open house parties?!?
Some of you were lucky enough to have your Target stores clearance their Christmas stuff to 75% off on Sunday. I had to wait until Monday (yesterday), but it was worth the wait. A good friend of mine was home for the holidays from South Carolina, so her and I went out to lunch and then power-shopped. Since she could not partake in the deals (no room in her luggage), she gladly helped me fill up two shopping carts and spend $200! I was asked to be on the “tour of homes” next year, so I was able to get a lot of ornaments to decorate four trees in different themes. Good thing I have extra storage space. There was a lot of Christmas stuff yet, so maybe I’ll be able to grab a few more things when it hits 90% off.
