Christmas Party for 2006

Talk about getting a head-start on a party.... I had a great idea for the invitations for next year's Christmas party. I've always saved the Christmas cards that are sent to us every year.... they make wonderful placecards for the table, and gift tags for packages. So why not use them for invitations as well?

I have a metal Christmas tree cookie cutter from Williams Sonoma, about 4" high and 3" wide...... I've never used it for cookies, but I've used it to cut out tree-shapes from old Christmas cards. That's how I got the idea for the invitations. I went through my box of cards, holding the tree cookie cutter up against the front of the cards to see which designs would make interesting and pretty tree-shapes when cut. I found lots of them..... and started to trace the cookie cutter on the card, then cut out the tree shape.

At our local hobby shop, I found blank cards made of heavy red card-stock paper. I hot-glued the tree-shapes to the fronts of the cards, then took a glue-stick and rubbed it along the outside of the tree as it sat on the card. I sprinkled sugary glitter over the glue, then tapped off the excess. What was left was the perfect sprinkling of glitter around the trees. I also had tiny snowflakes made of white plastic.... I hot-glued one of those to the top of the trees on the cards, so each tree has a snowflake-star on the top of it. Some of the trees got tiny rhinestones glued onto them. They look great.......all different designs on the trees, but all the trees on the red cards.

Next November, when I'm getting the invitations ready for our Christmas party, all I'll have to do is use my cookie cutter again to cut out the Christmas tree shapes from plain white paper, write down the party information on them, and just paste them inside the handmade cards. The red cards came with their own envelopes.... a set of 10 for just $4.00, which was very reasonable for textured card-stock.

My husband thinks I've lost my mind..... we're barely a week away from this Christmas and I'm already working on next year's Christmas party. But I'll stand by my belief that "next Christmas will be here before we know it........!"