My Favorite thing to DIY: Party Paper

I am linking up with Show us Your Life Over at Kelly's Korner.  Today, she asked people to link up with their favorite thing to DIY.  This was super hard for me because I DIY a lot!  To be fair there's also a lot I outsource too.  We don't shovel our own snow or cut our own grass and we have a cleaning service once a week. Before you get the wrong idea, I pick up and do laundry several hours a day!   It is just that not doing those things allows me to plant a garden, paint, do graphic design (you know I am a graph-faux artists, right), decorate, cook, spray paint, and reupholster things.  I even get my kids in on the act:

 Okay, that was just a shameless way to show my girls way back in 2010.. weren't they the cutest things on earth??!!  They were DIY'ing, though, making flowers from toilet paper rolls. They made 80 or so that Spring.  I glued them together,  spray painted them and wired the piece for hanging.  It is a huge and beautiful art piece over my guest room bed.  Really, its great looking and I  wouldn't trade it for a "real" art piece!  Even Mr 31-derful doesn't complain that it isn't real--it's that good!

My most favorite thing to DIY, however, has got to be party paper!  This has become more and more commonplace over the years with the fabulous options at Target and Micheal's and with printers having come so far.  Still , I know many people who outsource invitations, place cards, menu cards, and signage.

I have been doing my own since 2006 thanks to a simple and fabulous program called Printing Press Extreme.  I can't say enough about this program, which you can purchase in its updated form here. I also love to use the software that was free with my silhouette to do these types of projects.  It makes it so easy to elevate even a small event like a shower or birthady party.

I just think that a little paper goes a long way.  An invitation sets the tone for the event and using matching paper items at the event is an inexpensive way to tie everything together.   Take this example from my way-back archives (I wasn't so great with photography or blogging back then).  My mother-in-law was turning 60, and my father in law was surprising her with a dinner at a favorite restaurant.    I created a pretty orange and brown invitation for her autumn, surprise party.  The room was orange and brown and it was October,s o those colors were a natural fit.  When guest arrived at the event, they were greeted by a sign that mimicked the invitation and escort cards with the same font and color.

 The table assignments directed guests to tables named after her beloved grandkids (fortunately, there were exactly 6 tables).  You can see that the table number was also in the same "suite" as the invitations and signage:

To carry the theme even further, I added a menu card to match:

We did add floral as well, but it was the inexpensive paper that really tied it all together.  Here is the whole room:

The only other thing I added was an orange bow on the columns.  I even used the invitation for as inspiration for the slideshow screens.  I have put these kinds of touches on countless parties, showers, and celebrations over the years for myself and others.  It really is my favorite thing to DIY and I am literally off to do it right now for a 40th B-day tonight!