As much as we love trains in this house, we also LOVE trucks. I sing Bob the Builder songs in my head all day long. I can’t drive down any road without my child pointing out Two-Tonne or Muck. And if we go into Springfield, all I hear is “MOMMA, IS TINY!” Yes my child, I see the crane. (We’ll be seeing it for a while,I’m sure, at the rate that construction is going…). We even had to take these photos outside of Costco because, hello, it’s Scoop.
So needless to say, we have settled on a construction themed third birthday. My first order of business was to make Dump Truck Birthday Invitations!
I have discovered that I love paper crafting over the last few years. I have made his birthday invitations every year (as well as every other event in our family), and I make all of our party banners. I loved making his invitation this year, and I’m really excited with the results! And I want to share with you how I made them!
Paper crafting makes a huge mess, so the first step in doing any project like this: Accept the Mess!
My inspiration for these dump truck birthday invitations came from a craft we did at the Enfield Public Library about a month ago. The kids made a dump truck that had a tipping bucket attached by a small brad. Fortunately, my awesome librarian had a template available. Unfortunately, the template was too big for a standard greeting card envelope (A8), so I had to do some tweaking.
Once I resized things, I created stencils for the truck, the window, and the “load” in the back. The templates for this dump truck birthday invitation can be found here (this should be printed on 8 1/2 by 11 paper).
Our original project at the library was a free-standing truck, but I opted to set the truck on a backdrop for a more card-like look. I started with a base of blue card stock (I like to work with cardstock since it’s heavy and creates a more sturdy product), measured at 5-1/2 by 8-1/2 inches.
I used yellow cardstock for the cab, red for the load, and orange for the window. You can go with any color combination, but I stuck with the primary colors (which is also the color of the main characters in Bob the Builder). I found it easy to cut out all my stencils at the beginning. I used a ruler for the straight lines when possible and I cut with a craft knife (instead of scissors, since it gives me better control).
For the wheels, I used a circle cutter set at a 1-1/2 inch diameter. You can also use a Cricut, or a stencil, or even a pencil compass (if you want to go old school!).
To make the invitation more personalized, I put a photo of my child in the window of the truck. It worked out that I had the perfect picture from one of our events last month! I ended up cutting the photo slightly smaller than the orange window (so the orange could peak out). I printed the photos on a photo printer, set at wallet size, and then cut them down to size.
For the party details (the part hidden under the load), I created these on my computer using Microsoft Word. The font is Kristen, size 16. Any font will work, but you’ll want to watch the size so as to fit the template; otherwise, if you make this part too large, you’ll have white paper sticking out from under the load.
On the load, I wrote: DUMP EVERYTHING! (MAX) IS TURNING 3! (Random name I made up since we try to keep this kid from becoming too famous!) I used a Sharpie to write this out (which was a really bad idea, because using a Sharpie for 20 invitations gave me a serious headache! So maybe find a different medium to write with, or ventilate better than I did!!)
Once everything was cut and ready, I did some gluing! (Don’t get me wrong, I love all you guys, but I blacked out the party details since I think we’d both find it a little weird if you showed up to my boy’s birthday party!)
The final part was to attach the load to the truck. This was done using a brad (metal fastener). I ended up finding these at Staples. I poked a hole through the truck AND the blue background.
And voila, our dump truck birthday invitation was complete!
I thought these Dump Truck Birthday Invitations came out pretty dang awesome! They fit our construction theme perfectly, they did not take too long to put together (I finished them in about 4 hours), and they were super cheap to make since I already had all the paper!
This is a super easy project even for someone who has never made invitations before. You’ll find it easier if you work with a paper cutter, a circle cutter, and a craft knife- but a pair of scissors and a ruler will work too!
Happy Crafting everyone!
(And make sure to stay tuned for more posts about our construction party as I continue to prepare things!)
