Invites Made Easy with Basic Invite

It’s no surprise that I love throwing parties. I count down the months to my daughters’ birthdays each year, eager for a new opportunity to dive into my creative passions and have a good time.

Later this month, my sweet pumpkin, Parker, will turn two. Typing those words is like a knife to the heart a bit. You wont find a more perfectly sweet babe than little Parkie.

At almost-two-years-old, Parker is getting passionate about more and more things. Her list of favorites grows every day but, at least as of today, it looks something like this:

1.) Daddy
2.) Sissy
3.) Bun Bun (her stuffed rabbit)
4.) Daniel Tiger (who she affectionally calls Elmo)
5.) The soundtrack to the movie “La La Land”

We’ve been listening to the “La La Land” soundtrack since Oscar season and Parkie is as obsessed as I am. So, when I started planning her second birthday I decided to celebrate our common interest and give Parker a salute to Hollywood with a “La La Land” themed celebration.

As a designer, I usually insist on creating my own invitations for the girls’ birthdays. But, as a full-time working momma who managed crisis communications before, during and after Hurricane Irma for a vacation destination in Orlando, I politely had to tell my designer self, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

You’ll imagine all the heavenly music I heard in my head when I discovered Basic Invite. I know what you’re asking, “How is this different than any other invite design service out there?” Oh sister, am I about to drop some knowledge on you.

Basic Invite boasts “Truly Custom Invitations” and I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical. I remember designing our wedding invitations on a similar site and “truly custom” really meant “here’s three fonts to choose from.” No thanks. If I wasn’t going to be designing Parker’s invitations, I at least wanted to make as many modifications to a template as I desired.

Basic Invite allowed just that. Browsing through their templates for kid’s birthday party invitations, I was honestly almost swayed to host a completely different party so I could work with other super cute designs.

Upon first look, I was a little bummed because I couldn’t find an invite that screamed “La La Land” to me. That is, until I stumbled across the “Feel the Force” invites.

(Ya’ll know me and Star Wars. This was meant. to. be.)

The invites reminded me of the iconic Planetarium scene from “La La Land.”

Here’s where I put that claim of “truly custom invites” to the test.

I knew I wanted the color palette for Parker’s party to be fully of peachy pinks and rosy golds. This invite didn’t really fit that mode. But, never fear. Basic Invite offers over 180 different colors to change the color of every element on the card, down to the littlest detail.

 

I changed the planets to colors within the palette I was looking at, swapped out the fonts for something that felt a bit more classic and was even able to cut the corners of each invite so they looked like old fashioned movie tickets.

All this customization took me maybe 15 minutes. I did it with a glass of wine in one hand in front of the television in my PJs.

The transformation is pretty incredible!

It gets better.

I was able to order a sample of her invitations that came printed exactly as I had designed it so I knew exactly how they would look before I spent my money on them. They came out even better than expected.

Parker goes to a daycare where I could easily drop invitations into her classmates’ cubbies, but had I decided to mail these? Basic Invite’s free address collection service would have allowed me to share a link, collect my invitee’s addresses, to get them printed on envelopes for free. (Where was this when I was self-printing labels for our wedding invites?)

My entire experience with Basic Invite was nothing short of fantastic and I can’t wait to show you these invitations in action at Parker’s birthday later this month.

Planning a celebration of your own? Check out Basic Invite for inspiration on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, or browse other girls’ birthday party invitations on the Basic Invite website.