vintage carnival invitations

We finally decided on a theme for Noah's 4th Birthday - thanks to some cute vintage stuff I found at the craft store a few weeks ago. Plus, so much of it can be hand made, from games to decorations - and right now, I heart everything vintage...

I created these in PhotoShop using fun "carnival" style fonts - and colors red, gray and blue. My procrastination in getting the invites done were thanks to my fruitless attempts of finding red and white baker's twine at my local craft stores {who knew?} Etsy vendors carry a slew of these in small quantities and colors, but I didn't want to pay for shipping. More empty handed shopping trips followed, so I buckled down and ordered a giant spool online from We Sell Coffee - 3,400 yards to be exact {seems like the best value with shipping}. It finally arrived today, so we got to work... {I mean, this was our art project for the day}...

After I trimmed the edges with scalloped scissors, Noah pasted glue on the invite and adhered it to red card stock {8.5 x 11 cut in half}. Then he placed tiny colorful fasteners to the top.

Ava was in charge of cutting strands of string to lace around the fasteners...

I cut out triangle-shaped pieces out of origami paper {already had in the kids' art supplies}. Ava coordinated groups of 4 "flags" to go onto each card as the bunting... which I stuck on over the twine using double-sided foam tape...

This is how they turned out... in the grand scheme of things, I probably could have used any kind of string to create this effect, but for some reason, I had my mind fixed that it had to be red and white... oh well. So they are 2 weeks behind delivery...

Now, what to do with the rest of the 3,398 yards of twine?...