Make Your Own Footprint Baby Shower Invitations

Another example of how to create footprint baby shower invitations!

Here are some invitations that will take a little more time and effort to make. Although all your efforts will be rewarded in the end with an invitation with a lot of personality and color. If you decide to try an tackle this project it would make things easier on you to invite over some of the family and guests to set up an assembly line to put together the invites. This is a perfect opportunity to throw a little pre-shower party with the purpose of putting together all of your invites and shower favors!

Tools needed to make these footprint baby shower invitations:
paper - 65 lb. colored card stock, colored or construction paper, decorative paper
thin ribbon
footprint paper punch
glue stick or glue runner

To start making these footprint baby shower invitations use desktop publishing software to set up the inside text of your card. For this particular card I used the 4 to a page (postcard) format so that I can print the inside text of the invite onto plain white paper and attach it to the inside of the card for emphasis and decoration. This text will consist of the "Who, where, when, etc.." of the party information. If you need help with this and would like a printable file created for you visit the Custom Invitations Page

Once the text is printed onto paper, the next step will be to have all of the papers cut to their correct sizes. You can choose to do this by hand using a manual paper cutter, or you can go easy on yourself and have them cut at your local copy shop or printer. The card stock will need to be cut in half. The pages printed with text will be cut into quarters.
You should have chosen two other kinds of paper which will need to be cut into rectangles measuring 2 3/8" by 3 3/4". If you are cutting them by hand you can make this much more simple on yourself by measuring out many of these rectangles on the back of your paper using light pencil marks. Then use those marks as a cut-out guide. Many scrapbooking background papers already have a grid on the backside of them specifically for this kind of task.

Once all the papers are cut to their correct sizes, you will need to have your card stock cards folded in half. If you are using a very thick card stock I would recommend scoring them first.
When folding these cards by hand - if the fold is creasing or looking messy in any way go over the crease with a flat edge like a ruler or something similar. This will smooth the line back out.

Now It is time to get out the glue!
After folding all of you card stock in half take a long piece of thin ribbon and attach it lengthwise all the way across the entire invitation facing horizontally. Let it overlap on both sides by about half an inch.*(as you can see in the above picture where I used a thin yellow ribbon.)
To get this ribbon centered exactly just measure with a ruler to the halfway mark and draw a very light pencil line. Now just glue your ribbon down over the line so that you are hiding it.

Next you will use a footprint paper punch (more info on paper punches and where to get them) to punch out 3 footprints across solid colored paper square. To alternate between left and right feet just turn the paper over when you punch. (Make sure and keep all of your punched out little feet scraps to later glue to the top piece of pattern paper).

Next step is to glue down both pieces of the cut out rectangles of paper, placing the solid paper on the bottom of the card and the pattern paper on the top. Center them both to leave a slight margin of colored card stock border to peek through on all sides.

Now just glue down the left over little feet paper punch scraps at the top of the page to continue the footprints walking up the page.

All that need be done now is attach a little bow or embellishment to the left side of the divider ribbon, and the outside of your card is done!

Now for the inside of the card...

footprint baby shower invitations

The inside is quite simple. First just glue down the overhanging edges of ribbon from the front of the card. To hide the edges of ribbon on the left side of the card cover I glued down a pair of left over scrap paper punch feet.

For the last step attach the text for your invitations on the right side of the fold inside the card. Do this using a glue stick or glue runner as anything too heavy will make the paper warp.

Whew! You've just finished making yourself some very pretty and very stylish footprint baby shower invitations!

More tips and ideas for making footprint baby shower invitations:

* Experiment with different colors and textures of paper!

* Try using different embellishments than just ribbon! How about gluing down a small diaper safety pin?! Get creative!
Add beads to the diaper pin or attach ribbons or bows to the pin!

* Add to the footprints by using footprint shaped rubber stamps, or confetti shaped like little footprints!

* Footprint baby shower invitations do not actually have to be "footprints". Change it up by changing your paper punch! Use butterflies or baby bottles!