- Use your desktop publishing program to create birthday party invitations. Microsoft Publisher is a popular program, and Open Office is also capable of integrating images and text to create an invitation. You can get precut and prefolded cardstock with matching envelopes at most major office supply stores. The Avery brand provides instructions for setting up your home printer to print at the proper size and alignment. Experiment with different fonts, ink colors and clipart images to create custom invitations to go with your party's theme.
- Scrapbooking is a hobby that is becoming increasingly popular, with scrapbooking and specialty paper stores popping up all over the country. Visit your local scrapbooking store or online scrapbook supply vendor for a selection of papers and embellishments that you can use to make homemade invitations. Check to see if your local scrapbook store offers classes or open studio time. In classes, visitors generally pay a flat rate for instruction and get to keep the finished product. Many stores offer card-making workshops, and you can request a class just for making invitations. During open studio time, visitors are allowed to use all of the gadgets, scissors, hole punchers and die cut machines, usually for an hourly rate. This can be considerably less expensive than purchasing everything on your own, plus the staff can be quite helpful. Supply vendors catalogs offer ideas for color combinations and themed embellishments.
- For a child's party, it can be fun to send out kid-made invitations. Use the blank precut and folded cards that are widely available at office supply stores. Provide a variety of decorating supplies, including crayons, markers, paints, stickers, rubber stamps and colorful ink pads. Consider even glue sticks, scissors and construction paper or magazines for collage invitations. Don't fret if the child decorates the inside of the card, too. You can always print the pertinent party information on a piece of paper to insert into the cards. For children who enjoy putting a lot of time into their artwork, it might take several days to get the invitations made. Devote time each morning or after school to this art project.