DIY Envelope Tutorial (Caterpillar Party-Part 1)

These last few weeks have just been crazy busy, but so fun!  Our little boy turned ONE on Friday!  Seriously?!  Where did that year go?

On Saturday, we're having a birthday party for me and Eli--just a simple barbecue at our house with a few of his baby friends, and a few of my friends too. I decided to go for a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme, because I thought it would be fun!  And I can just have a few "caterpillar" touches, and the rest can be fun, bright colours.  I didn't want it to be too baby party themed, since it's also my party. 

Here are the invites I gave out to Elijah's little friends:

My son's first birthday party invitation includes the letters "B.Y.O.B.".....does that make me a bad mom? Probably. I'm gonna risk it.  Hey....it's my party too, and I like hanging out with his friend's parents! ;-)

 I designed the party invitations ages ago, and decided yesterday that I wanted to make some cute envelopes to go with them before I handed them out.

I loved that the invitations were all tucked in to an envelope with a cute pattern....and I loved the fact that these super cute envelopes and invitations were FREE!  Here's how you can make your very own cute, patterned envelopes!

1.  Print a pattern of your choice onto a large sheet of paper.  (A normal letter size wasn't quite big enough for mine).
 2.  Lay the invitation on the white side of the paper, and draw your template-- A rectangle in the middle (the "pocket"), a triangle to fold in on both short sides, and two smaller rectangles above and below the two long sides.

3.  Cut out the template, and use it to trace and cut out the desired number of envelopes.

4.  Fold in the two triangles.

 5.  Fold up the bottom rectangle, to get a nice straight crease.

6. Using a glue stick, put a little glue where you will secure the bottom rectangle.

 7. Secure the bottom rectangle like this.

6.  Fold down the top rectangle to get a good crease, and slide the invitations into the envelopes!

I also printed some labels: half with butterflies, and half with caterpillars.  I used the butterfly labels to seal the envelope on the back....

 .....and I printed the children's names on the caterpillar labels to put on the front of the envelope!

 So cute, right?! You could totally use a cute sticker, or a little washi tape to seal the envelopes...I just wanted to get the caterpillar theme going. 

So...what do you do to save money when throwing kiddos birthday parties on a budget? Do you make your own invites/envelopes?