To do what nobody else will do, in a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; that is to be a NURSE.  You did it!  Made it through hours of clinicals, medical classes and hospital shifts.  You’ve graduated from nursing school and will soon start making your rounds as a certified nurse or RN. 

Celebrate all of your achievements with a nursing school graduation invitation or a nursing school graduation announcement.  Our nursing school graduation invitations range from classy and formal with pocket cards with satin ribbons and simple nursing themes to fun an casual with classic nursing icons like a stethoscope, caduceus or nurse’s cap. 

For those who’d like to share a photograph of the nursing school graduate, we also have photo nursing graduation invitations which feature your digital photograph next to your graduation information and a traditional nursing icon.  Choose a card which features one of your favorite colors as an accent, or represent with your school colors.  Our photo cards are printed on high-quality 130 pound card stock which offer upgrade options to our silk photo stock which produces a clear photograph with a smooth finish for elegant presentation.

Below are a few of our brand new nursing school graduation invitations…

When browsing for your nursing school graduation items remember that we also carry nursing school thank you notes, as well as return address labels and envelope seals.  It’s a great way to thank your guests for their generous graduation gifts and also keep in touch with fellow classmates!

Destination: LOVE!  Destination weddings are growing increasingly popular nowadays with brides from the east to the west.  Whether you’re traveling to the mountains, the beach or a location outside of the US, heading away from home for your nuptials is one of the most popular trends in wedding planning! 

Is a destination wedding for you?  There’s good and bad parts to having a destination wedding, so it really depends on your ‘couple style’ and budget.  Destination weddings are a great way to take all of your friends and family on a fun-filled vacation while celebrating your next path in life!  Downside?  Some guests that you’d like to attend may not have it in their budget to be able to attend, especially if you’re heading overseas or out of the country.  Most destination weddings are small and intimate with a few close friends and family members.  Also, having a destination wedding can seem like your entire family is attending your honeymoon after the wedding?  If ‘the more the merrier’ is your celebration style, a destination wedding is where it’s at!  Destination weddings also offer a bit of wedding planning relief, as if you’re traveling far away, you may need to have a destination planner who takes care of your arrangements and decisions for you.  Be sure that you’re comfortable in explaining your style, wants and needs for your wedding so that you can trust your planner to make the proper decisions for you.

If planning a destination wedding, you’ll need to plan on sending your save the date cards and wedding invitations out a bit earlier than when you would for having a local wedding.  Send your destination save the date cards about 6-12 months before the event, and your wedding invitations about 8-10 weeks before the event.  This will give your guests time to plan to make their proper travel arrangements and budget for the event. 

When sending your destination save the date cards and destination wedding invitations it can be fun to incorporate your destination location into the theme of your pieces.  Whether it’s a cityscape, a mountainside or a palm tree on the beach, you’ll be able to give your guests a preview of the beautiful scenery that you’ve chosen for your special day.  Below are some of our most popular destination invitations…

We’ve just about reached spring which can only mean one thing, it’s party planning season again!  I do my best to compile all of our customers most popular questions and share them with our blog readers because in the invitation world, there’s a rhyme and a reason for every detail on your invitation or ensemble pieces. 

When composing a response card, you’ll need to have a few key details – the request for your guest to reply, a date in which to respond by, a place for the guest to insert their name and a choice for whether or not the guest will be attending.  Set your reply-by date for about 2-3 weeks before your event, if it is formal.  Keep in mind that some guests may not reply or may reply late, thus you want to give yourself a few days between your reply-by date and your caterer’s requested date to contact anyone who has not responded.

When giving your guests options on whether or not they are attending, we typically suggest “____will attend / ____will not attend” or “____accepts with pleasure / ____declines with regret”.  We do not advise printing “____Number of persons” on your reply card unless you’re welcoming your guests to fill in any number of guests that they’d like to bring along with them.  We suggest being specific and giving clear and concise choices to your guests, which will make your life easier in the long run.

Some people may even want to include meal choices on their response card if they are having a formal sit-down dinner and need to inform their caterers ahead of time of the number of meals to be provided, and which selections have been chosen.  Don’t feel intimidated if you need to do this.  The response cards we show online mainly do not show meal choice options, however remember that most of the time, nothing is pre-printed on our response cards.  If you need to insert meal choice options, this extra information may certainly be added.  When adding meal choices, we suggest being somewhat generic, in an effort to save space, thus listing your choices as “____chicken marsala / ____ prime rib / ____ lobster” rather than a full detailed list of the dish.  If you prefer to give a full listing and description of the entree, do so on a separate card included with the entree selections.

Remember to put your name and address on the front of your reply card envelopes, as well as pre-stamp them for your guests so that they can fill out the reply and return it to you promptly.  You will need your name on the reply card envelope for postal regulations, as well as some guests may wish to include a small note with your reply card and would need to know who they are writing to.

Got any other burning etiquette questions? Send them my way!  I am always happy to help you portray your important event information in a clear, concise and etiquettely correct manner.

Pretty soon the Easter Bunny will be hopping up to your doorstep to deliver a basket filled with chocolate, jelly beans, toys and maybe even a plush bunny rabbit!  Looking for something different and unique to include in your child’s Easter basket this year?  Or perhaps you need a springtime gift for a teach, church member, neighbor, family member or friend?  InvitationBox.com has a bit of spring fever this year and we’ve introduced some fun  new products to help you spruce up your Easter holiday gift-giving.

Bunny Custom Snap Stamp by Noteworthy Collections -  Noteworthy Snap Stamps are a great gift for children and adults and they’re the gift that keeps on giving!  Each complete snap stamp features a stamp base, (available with multiple colored ink options), and a snap-on/snap-off face to interchange as your seasons change.  Choose this fun bunny snap stamp for Easter, which features a baby bunny rabbit in the center and a fun phrase like “Hoppy Easter” around the outside.  Use this as a gift item or stamp it on a tag on your child’s Easter basket from the Easter Bunny!

Bunny Chic Stickers by IB Designs - Everybody loves stickers…and when they’re personalized, they’re that much more fun!  This bunny chic sticker from our very own IB Designs is a great gift for kids’ Easter baskets for hours of sticker fun.  Use them as chore rewards or on springtime correspondence to friends and family too!  This adorable sticker features a brown border with a light blue polka dotted center.  A baby bunny hopping out of an egg adorns the center of the sticker…so cute!

Dweezle Junior, The Easter Basket Bunny by GUND - Need a furry friend to accompany an Easter basket this Easter season?  Dweezle Junior is the perfect choice!  He’s soft, cuddly and holds an Easter basket with “Happy Easter” printed upon it and small Easter eggs inside.  He has two floppy ears and an adorable cotton tail.  Sitting at 10 inches, he’s a great Easter basket topper or a gift by itself for family or friends.

Shop our entire Easter Collection at InvitationBox.com!  From Easter invitations to Easter greeting cards and gifts, we have a complete spring collection to brighten up your season!

It’s great to be a girl!  There’s nails to paint, hair to be done, shoes to wear, places to shop and plenty of time to play dress-up!  Isn’t it funny how as a child we were always trying to be so grown-up and imitate exactly what our mother’s did?  And now that we’re adults, we all just want to back to being a kid again!!  Life has a funny way of telling us that the grass is always greener on the other side, and sometimes we forget simply how great and fun it is to just be a girl!

If you think back to being a kid, one of your favorite times of year was certain to be your birthday month, and the days leading up to your birthday seemed so long because you were so excited.  I remember planning my birthday party themes months in advance.  Ask your child, and I’m sure they are already planning their birthday which is six months from now!

Help you daughter celebrate her birthday and how fun it is to be a little girl!  Our designers spend hours researching what trends are popular among kids these days and have created some really great new invitations this spring season that truly expand our fun children’s party invitation collections.  From mermaid invitations to invitation designs with princesses, western cowgirls, bounce houses, candy, pirates, roller skating, swimming and cupcakes, there’s a brand new party invitation just awaiting your baby girl’s next birthday party.  Many of our designers have also introduced multi-cultural and different hair colors into their designs so that your invitation choice can look exactly like your daughter.  Not everybody has blonde hair, blue eyes and tan skin, and we think it’s important for your child’s personality and style to be reflected directly into their chosen party invitations.

Below are some of our newest girl birthday party invitation designs which we think you’re bound to love! 

Ready to start planning your child’s next party?  Checkout the entire girl birthday party invitation collection at InvitationBox.com!

Hats off you you, graduate!  Believe it or not, graduation season is right around the corner!  Pretty soon you’ll be ordering your son or daughters cap and gown for graduation, taking those famous graduation photos that you’ll cherish for years to come and start thinking about how you’ll want to celebrate all of your son or daughter’s accomplishments.  A graduation is a special time for both the student and the parent, as everyone’s hard work and persistence has finally paid off and a new chapter of life will be beginning.

When thinking about your child’s upcoming graduation, you may want to send out graduation invitations, graduation announcements or maybe BOTH!  Graduation announcements are great for out of town friends, family and relatives with whom you’d love to share the good news, but don’t expect them to drive from afar to attend the graduation ceremony or a party.  It’s a great way to keep in touch and send an update to them, as well as include a photograph of the graduating senior.  A graduation announcement can be simple, informing the recipient that the student has or will be graduating, as well as including the graduation date, location and possibly even noting the student’s to-be attending college or university.

If you’d rather invite everyone to your graduation event, your graduation party invitation can easily double as an invitation and an announcement.  Inform your guests in your wording that your child has graduated and then invite them to celebrate their commencement afterwards!  If guests live too far away or cannot attend, they’ll still know they were thought of with the invitation and also be informed about the big graduation day.  We have changed our website a little bit this graduation season, to help our customers when browsing for the perfect graduation invitation.  As there are so many choices for the perfect invitation, we’ve broken everything down into sections for you from girl/boy graduation to class of 2011, school colors, photos or career specific icons, symbols and logos. 

Below are some of our most popular graduation party invitations and graduation announcements this 2011 graduation season…

Spring is here and Lent is well underway.  Easter is right round the corner on Sunday, April 24, 2011.  It’s a great time of year filled with new beginnings, vibrant outlooks and the best of all – warmer weather!  There’s still plenty of time to plan a spring get-together with family and friends or maybe even host an Easter egg hunt for the neighborhood kids or local church members, whether it’s an annual event or a new tradition you’re starting.  Celebrate spring by hosting an Easter dinner, a family breakfast before church that Sunday or maybe even an Easter themed party for a child with an April birthday party.  The possibilities are endless, but so is the fun!

At InvitationBox.com, we offer a variety of Easter themed party invitations to help you celebrate your favorite Easter event.  Each invitation features fun Easter colors and pastels from yellow and pink to lavender, light green and purple.  Choose from Easter invitations featuring your favorite furry Easter bunny, Easter eggs, Easter baskets, tiny yellow chicks, ornate filigree egg designs and Easter holiday icon patterns, depending on your Easter style and type of event you’re hosting.  Whatever your Easter theme, from fun for the kids and family to a formal Easter dinner affair, there’s the perfect item to celebrate. 

Below are some of our favorite and brand new Easter party invitation designs that are just now available for this warmingly sweet spring season…

Looking for an Easter gift item for a favorite son, daughter, niece, nephew or cousin?  InvitationBox.com has you covered there too!  From bunny stuffed animals like Dweezle Junior shown at the top of the blog to a My First Easter Bunny Bib gift set with a burper pad, there’s something for all kids ages 0 and up.  Hoppy Shopping!

This blog post may just look good enough to eat!!!  Forget about the three-tiered, self-frosted, cartoon-shaped character cake madness we all used to go through to create the perfect birthday cake for our kids, family and friends milestone events…because right now everything is about the cupcake!  The simply extravagant little handful of heaven that makes everyone smile and also allows for the simplest cleanup!

Choosing cupcakes over a traditional cake is all of the craze right now with 1st birthday parties, kids birthday parties, adult birthday parties, corporate events, cocktail parties and even weddings!  It’s a simple, easy and fun way to make sure you have enough for each guest and you can also use  your own creativity to create a fabulous cupcake display.  Vary your icing or cake flavors to create a visual masterpiece that is even better when it’s eaten by guests!  You can even make your cupcakes into your child’s favorite characters from Sesame Street characters to ladybugs, flowers or sea creatures.  For those on a budget, cupcakes can also be much more affordable than a sheet cake from your local bakery, depending on who you order them from – or you can even make them yourself. 

You can even go as far as to include cupcakes into your party theme.  At InvitationBox.com our designers have put together a plethora of cupcake themed party invitations to help celebrate life’s most important events.  From vibrant, fun and kid-riffic with cupcake towers and different cupcake designs to feminine and sweet with single cupcake designs for your youngest, there’s a little something for everyone.  Our cupcake collection features cupcake themed party invitations, cupcake fill-in invitations, cupcake fill-in thank you notes and even cupcake stickers.

Below are some of our favorite cupcake invitation designs that will help you invite your guests to your sweet event:

Ready to take a walk on the wild side?  Bring out your fun, sassy and adventurous nature at your next upcoming event with an invitation that shows all of your guests that they’re in for one wildly fun ride!  One of the most popular themes in party invitations lately is animal print invitations!  From zebra print invitations to leopard print invitations, giraffe print invitations, cow print invitations or maybe a combination of animal print designs and borders, you’re bringing the fun of the wild into your everyday celebratory events! 

Animal print invitations work great for bachelorette party invitations, adult birthday party invitations and baby shower invitations.  They’re vibrantly striking, extremely fun and truly express the vibrant personality of the honoree.  Below are some of our most popular animal print invitations that may just spark a fun party idea for your next event…

Pretty Pink Leopard Party Invitation by Paper so Pretty

Can you hear the lion’s growl with this invitation?  You just might!  This sassy flat white invitation features a vibrantly striking hot pink border of black and light pink leopard print spots.  A light pink screen adorns the center of the card with a white and black trimmed border, which carefully holds your text.  Pair this invitation with a fun font or a combination of two fonts as shown on the left, and you’ve got the perfect invitation for a bachelorette party, adult cocktail party or birthday party!

Zebra Design Invitation by Checkerboard

Think you can handle this wild party invitation?  This wild and fun invitation by Checkerboard is printed on a a jet black card stock with a silver and black zebra print border on the left hand side.  Add your text in a metallic ink like silver or gold to truly make your invitation text sparkle.  Perfect for bridal showers or bachelorette parties!

Safari Party Invitation by SanLori Designs

 Can’t decide which animal best matches your fun personality?  Forget choosing one animal and plan the whole safari!  This fun invitation features a white central background with a thin red outer border.  The following inner borders feature brown, tan and black leopard print followed by black and white zebra print and another tiny red inner border.  It’s a great way to incorporate multiple animal themes into your event, which also allows for easy decorating!  This fun invitation is perfect for cocktail parties, casual corporate events or adult birthday parties. 

Ready to take that walk, wild thing?  Browse our entire collection of animal print invitations and you’ll feel like you just stepped into the jungle.  Happy hunting!

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  I spoke with a customer yesterday who informed me of a brand new up and coming bridal shower theme that I thought was so adorable that I had to share! 

The new theme is called a Dirty Dishes Bridal Shower! 

It’s a combination of a lingerie shower and a kitchen shower put together – what a great idea!  The idea is to have each guest bring a kitchen item, like a pot, pan, recipe box or gift bag of kitchen utensils for the bride, with a lingerie article inside!  This way you’re giving the bride two gifts in one – one for her kitchen, and one for her groom in the bedroom! 

When searching for the perfect invitation, you can choose which theme you’d like to go with, be it racy with a lingerie invitation or more subtle with a kitchen shower invitation.  I would think a kitchen shower invitation would work best with a small note about adding the lingerie or simply highlighting the term “Dirty Dishes Shower” with some sassy invitation wording.  Below are some great suggestions for your dirty dishes kitchen & lingerie bridal shower…

Got any other new ideas for a shower or birthday party theme?!  Keep them coming!  We love sharing new ideas with our readers and designers to make sure you find the perfect invitation you’re looking for!