For Yuki’s 4th birthday, we decided to throw a small party with a couple of her friends.  We were talking about a theme (though the theme was definitely more for me, than for her), and I was really hoping that she wouldn’t say “Frozen.”  Not that there is anything wrong with a Frozen party, but I just didn’t have it in me to do anything else Frozen related.  So I googled “summer party themes” and as we were scrolling through, Yuki yelled out “watermelon!”  It’s one of her favorite fruits.  She probably called out a few other ideas, but I was pretty psyched about a watermelon theme, so I steered her in that direction (I love that we can still do that with her and yet she totally thinks it was all her idea) and off to Pinterest I went!

I started a Watermelon Party Pinterest board to collect my ideas, but the project we started with first was the invites, of course!  I think I was inspired by these party favor holders, but I basically thought it would be fun to get Yuki involved by painting some watermelon invites!

Making them was simple, though of course it took some time and preparation.  But it was so fun!  And a way for Yuki to really get into the theme too.  From here on out, she was crazy about watermelons!

First I folded white cardstock in half and cut them into half circles.  Then I used a pencil to draw a couple of lines to help her know where to paint green and where to paint red.

I actually drew two lines, and the space in between the lines was meant to stay white, but it obviously didn’t happen on some of the invites.

When they were dry, she used a black pen to draw the seeds.

Since the paint had bled through to the other side, I decided to print the invite information and adhere it after.  It took a few tests to make sure the text was the right size and centered correctly, but then I printed them off on pink paper and used the cardstock half circles as a template to cut them the right shape and then just trimmed about half an inch off around the outside to leave a border.

To adhere the paper inside the card, I used my Xyron Creative Station (affiliate link).  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Xyron before, but I seriously love it.  I use it for most paper crafts and any time I need to adhere a lot of things – I’ve only used the permanent adhesive cartridge, but you can use it for laminating, making magnets, and with repositionable adhesive.  This isn’t a sponsored post or anything – I just really like this tool.  I’ve had mine for years and still use it all the time.

Anyways, after adhering the party info into the invites, I folded up some paper and used washi tape to make envelopes and Yuki carefully wrote names on them.

The thank you cards we made after the party were very similar to these except little wedges instead of half circles.  And what I learned was that if your paint makes your paper wavy, you can iron it flat and it’ll look nice and smooth again!  I put my iron on a medium setting and placed a thin cotton tea towel on top, then pressed it flat.  

It was really a fun project to work on together!  Most party planning falls on my plate, but I was glad I was able to get Yuki involved in this small way.  Plus, her art always looks way cooler than mine!

I had a few other “watermelon” projects that I made for the party that I’ll be sharing later this week and maaaaybe a tutorial, so check back in for that!  But in the meantime . . . September??  Really?  How did that happen already . . .