super fun blow up & pop balloon birthday party invites: a tutorial

My little boy Rhett turned 3 a few weeks ago. 

He's one of my favorite 3 year olds ever (go figure :)) so we wanted to throw him an epic, but simple, birthday bash. 

The theme we went with? 

Ballons. 

About 300 total. 

Whew.

So when I started thinking about invitations, I loved the idea of an interactive one.

After googling around, my favorite inspirations where number 7 and number 24 from this site. 

But the invites with the invitation printed on the balloons needed to be ordered in amounts of at least 25 (we needed 5) and the confetti popper ones would have been awesome if I could have found that style of popper. 

So I decided to merge the two ideas. 

Here's what you'll need.  

1. Paper* cut to size

2. Envelope*

3. Sequins or glitter

4. Ballon

5. Flower Wire

6. Narrow strip of paper with the party details printed on it

*I love this set of paper/envelopes from Target. It's $12.99 but the paper is a collection of vibrant colors and it comes with the right size envelopes. I use it for everything from thank you cards, to invites, to little letters. 

Step one: Design your invite. 

This is how we designed our invite. I just wrote it all by hand because it was easy, but obviously you could set your printer and margins to print onto the paper.

Step 2: Print the party details on to long strips of paper and roll them.

We kept the details really simple. 

"You're invited to Rhett's birthday! Saturday August 3rd @ 3:30PM. 555 Apple Lane.* Please RSVP to Julia @ 555 123-4567* by August 1st."

If you need to include more info you could just print it on the back of the invite.

*Obviously private information has been changed. :) 

 Step 3: Insert the rolled slip into the ballon.

Step 4: Take the sequins/ glitter and pour them into the ballon. 

We only did 5 invitations, so doing this by hand didn't take too long, but if you're doing more than that you might want to invest in a funnel. 

Especially if you chose to use glitter. 

Step 5: Punch 2 small holes slightly above the middle of the invite. 

I used scissors because our hole punch didn't reach that far in, but use whatever works best for you. :)

Don't worry about the holes being perfect, you won't be able to tell in the end. 

Step 6: Take your flower wire and cut about 2 inches.

Start from the back of the invite and thread your wire through to the front.

Arch it over and thread it through the back.

Fold the top of the ballon down over the ballon neck (technical term...?)

Secure the ballon by twisting the wire on the back.

It should look like this.

And that's it! 

Stick it in the envelope and send it on it's way!

When the invite arrives, a pop and shower of sparkles will help get the party started a little early. :) 

And for fun some pictures from Rhett's party. 

A ballon walk way lead to the party.

Cupcakes with "balloons." (Dum-Dums)

Pin the Tail on the Ballon

A balloon relay race.

And a ballon pit!

By far the most fun part. :) 

It was totally full (like almost 250 balloons) but by the time I could get pictures the kiddos had let some of them free. 

We hid prizes in the pit for them to find while they played. 

All in all it was a pretty simple theme, didn't cost a lot, and other than blowing up all the balloons (sooooo mannnnny balloooooons) it was a pretty easy set up. :)

Happy birthday Rhett!