I saw another inspiration photo on pinterest:

I thought that would be perfect for Millie's baptism, so I called up It's A Piece of Cake by Maggi, my favorite cake store, and emailed them a picture. She is amazing. See?

I did 3 different projects with this cake.  The first was the chalkboard signs that had really corny sayings like:
- To Bee or Not to Bee
- Beelieve
- I Beelieve I Can Fly
They were simple and I followed the tutorial here.

I also made a popular banner with sticks and flags that have Millie's name across.  This was very easy, I just cut out scrapbook paper into triangles, put one letter on each flag, hot glued the paper to string, and then wrapped the string around the sticks.  The sticks were dowels from Jo Anne fabrics that are very narrow in diameter, the narrowest they had (1/4 inch I think).

I also made the bees that were "flying" around the cake.  They were just small black and yellow pom poms glued together, with a yellow stripe painted on the black pom pom with acrylic paint, two puffy paint eyes on the yellow pom pom, and then some tulle wings cut into shape hot glued on their backs.  I hung them at different heights from two different sized embroidery hoops that I had in my sewing collection.

Here are the rest of the party linkups:
Part 1: Invitations
Part 2: Headbands
Part 3: Yellow Flag Banner

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Our daughter is having her baptism at the end of October, so I've been busy (as a bee) dreaming up a fun little party that doesn't cost too much.

One of the first things I thought of after deciding to do a "bee" theme is that making your own invitations isn't really that difficult. So I thought it would be great to have a beehive as an invitation.

First, it came out much better than I thought. I am by no means an artist. Another question I bet you are thinking is: how do I get envelopes for my cards? Well, I bought mine with envelopes.com. They are great and for 50 envelopes, it was only $9.99 plus shipping. So far so good! Those came in the mail and I was off to the races.

I decided to keep the costs down, I would make 2 invitations per page of paper, which basically means a 5 x 7 invitation. That would mean an A7 envelope. I found this out by using the google and asking "What envelope size do I use for a 5 x 7 invitation?". It told me the answer. Smart google.

Next, I went to my local Joann's and picked up some letter sized scrapbook paper. I wanted the thick kind and my choices were limited to 2 yellow papers. One had gold in it (yuck!) and the other had a canvas feel. I personally thought the canvas feel had a more "hivey" look, so I went with that one.

I needed 14 invitations so I bought 9 pieces of the paper just in case I made printing mistakes.

Next, when I got home, I had to measure the paper and cut it down to 8.5 x 11 inches because that is what I was using as a paper size in the word template. Here is the word template by the way. You can edit it however you would like. I just love the bees I got from clipart!

Then, I drew out the hive shape I wanted the invitation to have. This was a bit trickier because it had to be in the 5 x 7 size for the envelopes and also contain all the words. I cut down a plain sheet of paper to 5 x 7.

Next, I printed out the words on my fancy paper. Be sure to do a couple tests if you change the wording template to be sure it will fit in the hive. Once I was sure, I printed out 9 copies (enough for 18 invitations). Then I traced the hive onto each invitation. I folded the hive across in a straight line as a guide to be sure the hive wasn't crooked, and aligned the fold with the last line on the invitation about the RSVP. It worked like a charm.

Then I cut out the invitations and decorated. I loved adding the dotted lines from the bee stinger to show a little movement. I think this was the best part of making the invitations. What do you think? Does it look like a beehive?

Be sure to stay tuned, more party DIY to come!