Birthday Invitations ~ I've got a cheap cute way!

Gavin's birthday is coming up which of course means a big birthday party with his family and friends.  Last year I got very fancy, expensive-ish invitations that probably were a waste of money but part of the appeal was that I did not have to hand write each one.

This year, I knew I would not want to write out a bunch of invitations (I mean, there's like 19 kids in his class alone; my hand gets tired just thinking about it) but I wanted to save money.  Then I remembered our Christmas cards, we ordered 100 for less than $20.  Remember the secret?  (TBH, I don't know if I posted about it on here or not)

But anyways, here's my secret: photo prints and Microsoft paint!  I took a picture of the kids by a blank wall and added text using Microsoft Paint.  Then I uploaded it to Shutterfly and ordered prints at Target.  Badaboom Badabing!  I even alternated colors of the letters in the words and used different fonts to make them super-adorable.  So tonight, I spent an hour making Gavin's birthday invitations, and I must say they turned out great!

Now you might be wondering, why did it take me a whole hour?  Well... Microsoft Paint is finicky.  If you save the file mid-type or click off the text box, you cannot access it again.  So you are stuck with whatever text you already added, where it is, without the option to edit it (unless there's a secret way of doing so that I have not yet discovered).  Stupidly, it took me 45 minutes to realize I could edit the text in Microsoft Office before copying it into the text box in Paint.  I'll remember that for next time.

Now we just have to figure out the cake and party favors.  Send cheap party favor ideas my way!

Here's the picture before I edited it

Here's what the final product looks like with personal information blocked out
(Can't risk a student finding this page and trying to crash)