French Party – the Invitations

For his fifth birthday party, my little man decided to have a French theme, and we had the party on Bastille Day (14^th of July). It made me rather nostalgic as that day was a time of huge celebrations when I was growing up in France. My baby (I know, he is not a baby, he is five!) made me so proud when he chose that theme. He wanted me to make macarons for his birthday, wear a beret and try eating snails. If the boy did not have a French passport already, surely he would be given one just for these three reasons!

Every time we organise a party, the first thing we plan is the invitations. I am no card making expert, but I enjoy putting together invitations for the children if I have enough time. I love paper, whether it is reading books, buying pretty notebooks, writing my diary, cutting patterned papers for scrapbooking or turning plain cards into homemade invitations.

We both agreed that the colours of the French flag would set the tone nicely. That was rather convenient as I had some card in all three colours. We bought a pack of blue envelopes and cut A4 red cardstock in two to make folded cards that would fit in them.

Crevette chose to have a few French words on the front. This is what he went for:

Je t’aime – I love you

5 ans – 5 years old

Oui – Yes

Bonjour – Hello

C’est mon anniversaire! – It is my birthday!

That part was rather straightforward. He decided where he wanted the words on the card and we looked at a variety of fonts before making up our minds. It took us minutes.

The final result looked too plain and I suggested adding the bunting in blue, white and red. I did some measuring and cut same sized diamond shapes in the three colours. Crevette and I folded them in two and stuck them with double sticky tape around a piece of string. I did not have much at home so we ended up using off-white cotton string I found at the bottom of a drawer.

On the inside, we wrote the text inviting Crevette’s friends, using a faded French flag as the background.

Here is the text we went for:

Dear xxx,

I will be in France on my birthday

so I thought I could have a party with my closest friends

on French National Day:

Sunday 14^th of July

From xx a.m. to xx p.m.

I really hope you can make it!

We do not mind stereotypes in our house! Feel free to come wearing a beret and a stripy top.

Be warned!

There will be snails;

There will be stripes;

There will be berets;

There will be garlic;

There will be lots of cheese…

… but mostly there will be fun and nice people!

R.S.V.P.

We were really pleased with the way the cards turned out.