Hendrix and the Purple Crayon: Birthday Invite Year 5

I didn’t design any invites for Hendrix’s birthday last year since we had had a private family party so I'm going to move right along to this year’s invitations which were designed with the theme; Harold Hendrix and the Purple Crayon (after the book by Crockett Johnson).

As you might remember, Harold—the little boy in the story—creates a world of adventure for himself with his imagination and the use of his magical purple crayon. I wanted to tie this idea into the design of the invitation and yet I wanted the message to be comprehended should the receiver be unfamiliar with the old tale. I did this by blatantly informing the reader the theme for the party right in the text of the invite (click photo to enlarge). I also included a notebook and purple crayon for the receiver to draw their own adventures.

For the notebooks I adhered various patterned washi paper to a thick cover stock for the covers and for sketching paper I just used a plain white 20# stock. I bound each 5” square book together with a thick needle and purple embroidery thread. 

Formatting the information for the invitation was the quickest part of this project, (binding the books took the bulk of my time). The party info was printed on a linen paper and then wrapped around the notebook as a belly band. The band held the notebook nice and flat as well as housed a purple crayon which was slipped right underneath to complete the look. I had originally planned to attach the crayon another way but after much experimentation, this simple solution was the most aesthetically pleasing.

Well, that covers it a week of birthday invitations, we should really do this again sometime. And in case you missed it, check out year one's Buggy invites, year two's Car Cruising invites, and year three's Messy Party invites. 

P.S. As a piece of unsolicited advise; I highly recommended you hand deliver your 4 year old's birthday invites to their friends parents rather than have him hand deliver them himself to his friends. This will prevent an eager child from tearing off and discarding the important details to an upcoming party before their parents ever set eyes on the information and then you won't feel the need to email all the parents later on to make sure their coloring pad came with an invitation attached—this after you find a small stack of belly bands abandoned on the floor as a crumpled memory (run-on sentence to elicit drama). Obviously I am only speaking hypothetically!