Disney Week begins - Nemo Birthday Invites!

This is going to be a Disney week here on my blog as I am going to share with you the creations I put together for my daughter's birthday party and ending in the Me and Mickey Blog hop. Last year she was all about the princess party, and you can see all of those creations here, but this year she decided that it was going to be a Finding Nemo swim party. This presented quite the challenge since Finding Nemo party supplies have been discontinued everywhere except for people trying to scalp you on ebay - so I had to get creative! And so we will being today with the invitations!

The details: 
These are,  believe it or not, regular A2 size invititations, in fact just a wee bit smaller since I had to cut two out of each 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. Those of you who are familiar with the Disney carts will maybe realize that layering the characters at such a small size is a HUGE pain in the behind, but I have a solution - and its name is vinyl! But first some closeups of each design - we chose four of the characters - and I made 8 of each design (because yes I am nuts).

Nemo - cut at 2.25 inches

Marlin - cut at 2.30 inches

Dory - cut at 2.50 inches

Pearl - cut at 2.25 inches

I created a Gypsy file with for my card bases that welded rectangles from Plantin Schoolbook with the waves shape I also found on that cart! Talk about hidden treasures! I wanted a cut out on the front of the card where I could put acetate and then my vinyl figure -I wanted the illusion of an aquarium.  And where did the acetate come from? I used almost all of my stash of the plastic clamshells that Cricut cartridges are packaged in ~ but don't you worry ~ I have worked on replenishing it since then. 

As I said earlier - the characters are cut quite small and I would not recommend doing that with paper because the vinyl made it easy to position the pieces and re-position if necessary. I did not however cut those teeny white eyes out - since I am not completely mad - instead I used a MS paint pen to add the whites for the eyes - worked wonderfully on the vinyl.

To frame the front I cut out some coral (which is also found on Best of Pixar) at 2 inches and flipped the image for the other side. I did a teeny bit of hand trimming on the coral since there was a little piece hanging over each edge. I also added a stamped sentiment from an Inkadinkado wooden stamp. I used Stazon because I was using Recollections brand shimmer paper (also used for the coral) and I wanted to make sure it didn't smear. 

For the inside of the invite, I printed out the details on clear shipping labels from Staples and then just stuck them to the inside. My daughter decided she was foregoing presents this year and asking for donations to the SPCA instead - so the pressure was on for a fabulous party!

Later this week I will share with you the necklaces I made for the goody bags and how I was able to use the negative cut from the invites for tags, and then the decorations and game for the party. Until then I hope you enjoy these - and maybe look into playing with some vinyl!

---Allison