Party time’s coming up and you need to shout it out since it’s only a legitimate party bash when you have guests, so never EVER overlook the importance of the seemingly humble party invitation!

The most common way is to send out invitation cards informing your guests about the upcoming party. However, here are a few interesting suggestions for creative invitations for your child’s birthday party!

Make your very own card

Nothing beats something specially customized so why not make your very own party invitation card? It’d be a fun bonding process too instead of using generic store-bought birthday invitation cards, which lacks that special touch! More importantly, this also creates a perfect avenue for important family bonding!

There are essentially two ways of going about this fun process – using the computer with fun, user-friendly design software or the more traditional method that involves your usual scissors, markers, colored papers and glue.

Once you’ve decided which approach to go for, rope your child in to start the creative process! Ask them vital questions that make them feel important because they are doing what adults do – making significant decisions! Plus, this is for their all-important, once-a-year birthday party and they are the star!

Some questions to ask your child during this family bonding creative process could be:

– Do they have a special theme in mind for the party?

It could translate into the design of the card, .e.g a fairy princess theme for girls or an action super hero one for boys

– What’s the principal color theme they want for their birthday card invites?

If they wish to incorporate their favorite color, e.g. orange, you could add complimentary colors to their card like bits of yellow and white to jazz things up.

Once you’ve designed the cover, you’re almost halfway done! If you’ve chosen to use the more traditional way of putting it together with cut-outs, drawings or origami stuck on the front, be sure to scan a high-resolution copy of this to print out later for the actual cards – you don’t have to replicate this for each and every invitation card!

Send an e-Card via email

Since you’ve already have a softcopy in your computer of the special art-work design from above, you may choose to send out the birthday invitations as an e-card through email instead. This could be as an attachment or embedded in the body of the email, along with the necessarily information regarding the party.

Do ensure that you have everyone’s email addresses. Also, do note that not everyone might have an email account (children in lower primary or younger) so make arrangements to print out a hard-copy and pass it to those who do not have access to one, or alternatively, send the e-card invitation to the email account belonging to the parent/s of the invited child.

If you intend to use e-cards as the novel way of sending out invitations (after all, we live in the new millennium!) there are fun, user-friendly 2D & 3D animation software that you could use to certainly spruce up your child’s party invitation. It may be a bit time-consuming, but you can be sure everyone would be raving about it once they see your labor of love!

Send a Picture Text Message or MMS

It is amazing how many children own mobile phones these days, with the number growing bigger every day as more parents see the need to stay connected with their restless youngsters. A simple idea for a modern casual party invitation is to take a picture of the birthday child in all smiles, or use a generic birthday party icon that comes as a template or as a downloadable MMS. Send this picture along with the party details and just sit back to wait for their RSVP via your own mobile phone.

While this is convenient for you, the only disadvantage is that not all children own a mobile phone so you may have to find their parents’ numbers instead to send the information accordingly.

Important Party Details to Include

Now that you’ve got the finalized design of the all-important birthday party invitation (be it snazzy 3D animation to be emailed out, a super-cool 2D design using the computer to print on cards, an eye-catching MMS or something put together the more traditional way), don’t forget to include the essential party information!

While the front of the card shouts out the message, i.e. YOU ARE SPECIALLY INVITED TO (BIRTHDAY CHILD’S NAME)’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!, details within the party invite should entail the following:

– Name of invited guest (is this just the child, or can their parents come as well?)

– Name of your child, their (age, e.g. 8th) birthday party

– The day/ time & venue of the birthday bash

– Indication of any particular theme/ dress code

– RSVP with your contact details

So an invitation card to your child’s classmate Chriss would look like this:

“Dearest Chriss

You are specially invited to Elizabeth’s 8th birthday party on Saturday, 16 October at 2pm at No. 15 Raffles Park Avenue.

Please RSVP by 9 October to Mrs. Vivian Chua (Elizabeth’s mother) at 91998181.

Thank you and here’s looking forward to seeing you at Elizabeth’s birthday party!”

What’s next?

So you’ve duly sent out the invites to all your guests, with at least a week before the RSVP date… now what? Give your guests some time to respond and keep your RSVP list close to you so you can update it as and when you get a reply. Make a call one day before your indicated deadline to the invited guests who have yet to respond.

Make contact again on the RSVP date itself to finalize attendance and explain that you need to gather the confirmed number so you can go ahead with the catering and party planning. Be polite when speaking with other parents as you communicate that their kind co-operation is essential in allowing all the kids to have fun.

Remember, putting together the birthday party invitations should be an enjoyable family bonding process for you and your child. Let their creativity flow and listen to any suggestions they have, as wacky as it may be! Make them feel special and allow them to take charge since it is for their very special day.