Fun Ways to Foil Stamp Birthday Party Invitations

Custom birthday party invitations can be a lot of fun to design, especially when you use the sparkling shimmer of foil stamps in your creations. Foil stamping is often overlooked by designers, but it remains one of the easiest and most elegant ways to dress up any design on nearly any type of printed material. Try the following three fun ways to foil stamp birthday party invitations to make your mark on the design world this year.

1. Make an award

Use a foil stamp as an official award certificate seal on your birthday party invitations. Make like you're going to be giving an award to the guest of honor - it could be semi-serious or totally humorous, depending on your take. Award examples include: "Best Dressed 30-Year-Old," "Most Unlikely to be Alive at 50 Award," "Oldest Geezer Award" or anything else relevant to the man (or woman or child) of the hour.

2. Give money

Many birthday cards are designed to give money, but you can put a clever twist on an old tradition with foil stamping. Instead of sending out plain invitations, make them look like gold or silver bars and include a line similar to: "I'm thanking you early for the gifts you'll bring to my birthday party with these gold bar invitations." You could alternatively make the foil stamped birthday party invitations in the shape of a coin or a pile of coins. Either way, foil stamping is a great way to represent coins on invitations.

3. Crown a prince or princess

Combine foil stamping with die cutting to make crowns to wear to the birthday party in questions. You could even use foil stamps to add studded jewels. Send them out to guests so they can wear them as loyal subjects - this is good for a kids' birthday party, sure, but it can also be incorporated into a humorous slant exclusively for adult attendees. One of the best things about foil stamping is that it is relatively cheap and easy to put such an advanced style technique on just about anything, including birthday party invitations. No longer are you relegated to balloons and clowns - with foil stamping the possibilities are endless, especially when you begin to mix and match your shimmering stamps with other advanced design techniques such as die cuts. Remember to have your birthday cards professionally printed, and never settle for an amateur foil stamping shop. Choose a thick 16-point gloss cover stock to add even more shimmering sheen to your birthday party invitations, or opt for a deep and rich 13-point matte cover stock that's recycled to be eco-friendly and green. Always request a hard copy proof so you can ensure that your finished foil stamped invitations look as great off the press as they do on your computer screen before you commit to going to print. Finally, you save money having your printer mail your birthday party invitations directly to your mailing list so you don't have to waste time and money on the middleman shipping company.