DIY Dora Birthday Party Invites

I've been planning to share this for a while because I was so happy with how it turned out. We gave our princess a party for her first birthday with a Dora The Explorer theme. She loves Dora. She starts giggling and dancing whenever she hears the Dora theme song.

Anyway, we held the party at a restaurant so I won't have to worry about the food and hired a photographer and party planner to host and decorate the venue. However, I decided to DIY the invitations and loot bags to save a little on cost because I like doing stuff like that.

I went online to look for party ideas and I was surprised that there were a lot! I liked the party favor container ideas on this site.

So creative. However, my loot bags were all set. I was able to buy backpacks with Dora print for the little girls, and blue paper bags which I plan to decorate with Diego stickers for the boys. Here's a picture of party loot bags with the items we got to put inside:

I decided to use the idea for a character on the invitations instead. I made "Backpack" character envelopes and "Map" invitations :)

ENVELOPES

You will need:

• Purple paper (to make envelopes) or purple envelopes
• Image of Backpack that clearly shows the eyes and mouth (template provided in this post)
• Printer
• Yellow paper
  
• Red paper
• White paper
• a Printer
  

STEP 1: Make your own envelopes (you can find several tutorials online) using purple paper or, buy purple envelopes (like me!).

STEP 2: Search online for images of Backpack. Using Photoshop (or other image editing software), re-size the image to fit your envelope. Then create 3 separate images: 1. Eyebrows, 2. Eyes, 3. Mouth.

Here's the template I used:

To download: 1) Double-click the image. 2) After the image loads, right click and choose 'Save Image As'

STEP 3: Print the image of eyebrows in Yellow paper.

STEP 4: Print the image of the eyes in White paper

STEP 5: Print the image of the mouth in Red paper.

Here's what I had after printing.

STEP 6: Cut out the brows, eyes, and mouth images.

If you will notice, my image wasn't so good. The mouth had parts that are nothing but printed lines! My fingers went numb after all that cutting.

STEP 7: Paste the cut outs on your envelope. Make sure the facial features are positioned to resemble Backpack.

Here's what mine looked like:

Cute huh? :)

INVITES

You will need:

• An image of Map
• Photoshop and Photoshop skills preferred, but Word editing skills will do
• White card paper
  
• a Printer
  

STEP 1: Draw a map to your venue. I used MS Powerpoint to draw because I find it easier to draw lines there.

STEP 2: Layout! (using Photoshop, other software, or MS Word). Paste the image of Map on the upper left side of the invite... kind of how it looks on TV when Map sings "I'm the Map!" and shows Dora the way to wherever she wants to go.

STEP 3: Print

Here's what I came up with:


I downloaded clipart of buildings and trees to add dimension to my map because it looked a little plain. I was trying to look for free font online that resembles the font for Dora the Explorer. I found a forum online and someone suggested Creative BB. Sorry, I forgot which forum I got that tip from :(

I also created an image for a birthday banner which we had printed on tarpaulin to be used as backdrop:


Of course, we got a Dora cake from Goldilocks (they are the only ones authorized to carry Nickelodeon character cakes here, I think).

So there, my little baby turned 1 already! How time flies.

Edited 03/08/2011
I finally posted the image of 'Backpack' I used. I used to have a note here that says leave your email and I will send it via email. But since I'm a little busy, it might take a while for me to check my emails so here you go!

Some of the projects on this post are linked up to the following link parties:

• Creative Itch