DIY Rock Climbing Birthday Invitation

This past year we tried out rock climbing at the Deerhurst Resort and my son loved it. He surprised us by making it all the way to the top several times. So this year’s birthday party theme was pretty easy to come up with! As with all projects, I searched around on the net looking for some great inspiration and found Martha Stewart’s rock climbing invite. LOVED it! So I went out to source all of the materials. I wanted the tag to relate a bit more to the six year old boys that we would be sending the invites to, so I designed a logo for the event, which I am intending to put on T-shirts to hand out at the party. Boys Rock!

By: Janet

Materials and Tools Required:

– 4″ x 2″ clear mailing labels, Staples $15.46/100

– Scissors

– Shipping tags, Staples $4.45/100

– Bakers twine, greenmunch.ca $16/240 yds

– Assorted rocks

– Computer

– Printer

– Bags (small candy or something similar)

Project Costs: You should have most of these items on hand, wool can be purchased fairly cheaply at craft and wool stores if you go the acrylic route.

Tutorial:

STEP 1: DESIGN THE INVITATION

First you need to design your invitation. You can hand write directly on the tags or design something on the computer and print out on the clear mailing labels. I was impressed with how translucent the stickers looked on the tags, as if they had been printed directly on the tags.  If you like the Boys_Rock.jpg icon I designed you can download it here BOYSROCK_LOGO.

STEP 2: MAKING THE LABELS
Next, apply the labels to the tag. I used the front side for the invitation copy and the backside for the map and other pertinent details. The tags are quite tacky, so difficult for small children to apply.

Cut your string into approx. 12″ pieces and loop through the hole. I then tied a knot about 1″ from the hole to give a stable join to start tying the rock with.

I next handed over the project to my son who carefully picked a rock for each guest and tied it to the tag.

STEP 3: THE FINISHING TOUCH

We printed out extra name tags and applied these to the bags before inserting the invitations. I found these bags at work (they are ground coffee bags) but you could use candy or even clear plastic bags.