the nutcracker ballet invitations

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thank you for the kind words of comfort about our family dog.  shea lived a long, full life with lots of love and happiness.  he spent his last few days in better spirits and comfort thanks to a very good veterinarian.  having the weekend to say good-bye to him was a gift.

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so here is another attempt at catching up on blog posts.  last month was giavanna's fourth birthday.  and at casa hart, we are fans of a birthday party.  although simple in terms of scale and budget, we do put some real effort in making the day special.  i love celebrating their little lives this way.

we decided upon a nutcracker ballet birthday party for our gia-bee.  she loves ballet.  loves loves loves it.  since our party was not going to be just a group of little girlies ga-ga for pink, a nutcracker party was our brilliant compromise.  and our household was a bit nutcracker obsessed last month anyway.  battles with the mouse king around every corner and visits to the land of sweets aplenty.

for these invitations, i started by flipping through tracy porter's book inspired gatherings to get the creative juices flowing.  (do you know her?  i love her style.)  then i gathered a slew of stuff from the stash that seemed to say ballet and nutcracker.  the floor was piled with random little pretties.  i played around with it until something crazy cool was created.

materials used:
evergreen cuttings from our christmas tree
candy canes
cardstock
printer
circle hole punch
alphabet stamps
black ink pad
jingle bells
assorted ribbons
tulle circles
beaded trim
wire



i think they turned out great.  better than great really.  maybe my most favorite invitations ever.  and that is saying alot, because i have been making invitations longer than almost any other craftiness.




i love that there was no real rhyme or reason to these.  i just had fun. 

(and you should have seen gia's face the next morning when i showed her the finished pile.)