Woman in Real Life

My little girl's birthday falls within the month of October, opening up some fun possibilities for linking her birthday party with Halloween. This year, she wants her friends to come in costume and she also asked to create her own party invitations.

Her dad (who has worked at art galleries and museums in the past) suggested creating invitations using relief printing. The most common form of relief printing is woodcut, where you cut an image in a wood block, apply ink to the wood and print the inked image on paper. The carved areas remain free of ink and thus create white lines on the printed surface.



This "woodcut" effect can be created inexpensively (and safely for children) using a styrofoam food tray and a pencil or stylus. First, find a desired image online and print it in the appropriate size. To create wording for your card, write backwards on a piece of paper.


Place the printed image on top of a cut piece of styrofoam food tray. Using a pencil, etch through the lines of the image, creating an impression on the food tray. Do the same with the words.


Use a palette knife to apply printmaking ink to a piece of glass or plexiglass. Use a brayer to roll out the ink.

Roll ink onto the styrofoam "block" using the brayer.


Position a paper or card carefully over the inked block. Press a spoon over the entire surface to transfer the ink to paper.


Peel back the paper.


Allow cards to dry overnight. Some of our cards did not print evenly, but I actually like the "ghostly" effect, given that we are going with a Halloween theme.

My daughter chose to hand write all of the invitations, but you could definitely get creative on the computer, printing your party details and pasting them inside each card.

Have you created your own invitations in the past? What method did you use?


Linking up to Our Delightful Home and DIY Vintage Chic and Multi-Testing Mommy