Let the Birthday Preparations Begin!

Trevor turns nine at the beginning of June, so we've started working on his party. He's known since about 10 minutes after last year's party ended that he wanted a "How to Train Your Dragon" theme for age 9. Location was a bit trickier.

Trevor thought a lot about different locations. He ruled out having his party at home; he wanted to go somewhere. He considered the pros and cons of a free location (like a park) where he could invite pretty much everyone he knows, versus inviting fewer people to a place where we have to pay by the child. After great consideration, he decided that he wanted to have a skating party and invite just a few friends. He's done both roller skating and ice skating lessons recently, so he looked at both locations as possibilities before deciding that ice skating was the better choice. It's considerably closer to home, much less expensive, and available on his actual birthday.

The skating rink offers three levels of party options and Trevor surprised me by insisting on the least expensive one. He was adamant that he didn't want a party hostess, a private party room, nor their included (and thus, not adequately themed) cupcakes. Fine by me. With the date, time, location and theme set, it was time to make a guest list and create our invitations.

Trevor found a picture of Toothless that he liked and asked me to sketch it. When I was happy with my sketch and Trevor had approved it, I cut it and traced it onto black cardstock. Then I cut that.

Trevor went through every single piece of green cardstock I own to find just the right shade for Toothless' eyes. I cut the eye shapes and glued them in place. Trevor was thrilled. We scanned the image on a white background.

Trevor had his heart set on exactly replicating the font that Toothless uses to speak in the books. We tried, but couldn't find a perfect match. He finally settled for good enough. He wanted the date, time and place in white on Toothless' tummy and the other information in black on the white background. We added a green border digitally. We ordered them as prints and are backing them with black cardstock. The completed invitations look like this:

We haven't firmed up any other details. I'm almost afraid to ask what kind of cake or cupcakes he's envisioning...