Like most everyone else in the world it’s my family, of course, that makes my heart the happiest…my family that fills my heart with joy. They’re the reason I work so hard and they’re the ones I look forward to spending my spare time with.
And, our annual “Staycation” is one of those ways we all get to spend some quality time together. This fall marked our third annual family “Staycation”; our “mini vacation” weekend that has become something of an event that we all look forward to. (You can check out last years invitations here.)
In order to kick off the weekend I like to make a fun, formal invitation – spelling out the daily activities for the weekend and my new annual “theme” as a little sneak peak and memento for the kids.
This year my theme was: RESTORE, RELAX, REFRESH.
For the invitations this year I purchased these plain card stock tri-fold folders from Hobby Lobby…..
On the outside of the envelope I used “family” themed 3d craft stickers also purchased from Hobby Lobby…..
And, added some tags with these adorable little clothes pins that stated the theme of this year’s Staycation.
As you open the first layer of the folder, you see the second layer with a little introduction to the weekend.
On one side of the envelope I attached a small card holder to hold the “room key” to the specific room that each of them would be staying in. Attached you see more stickers expressing: “good times together” (Which we always have by the way 
.)
I named each bedroom “suite” with it’s own theme and had a sign on each door to reflect the tag name with the key when they “checked in”. Here you can see this particular room is called “Tuscan Times”.
As you open up the second layer – the third and final layer had more of the 3d craft stickers touching on “family fun” theme; and here was where they could see their daily itinerary: Each day’s activities on individual tags in the card holder.
Notice the buttons on each one signifying my theme: Restore, Relax, Refresh. (For this quick picture they’re actually out of sequence)
“Restore” was Friday’s theme and itinerary….
“Relax” was for Saturday….
“Refresh” was for Sunday.
You can see the actual itinerary spelled out here a little better as well as another one of the room captions: “Rod-ay-o” as in Hollywood, not as in bulls and horses. Just sayin’.
Next I made envelopes out of craft paper to place the invitations in. (I thought I took pictures of how I made them, but I can’t find them. Sorry!) But, basically, here are the steps to make them:
1) I used two large craft sheets gluing the two sheets together to create one long sheet. The shorter end where it was glued was placed on the inside of the envelope so that the outside was clean.
2) I folded in the side edges to create a finished edge and flipped up the bottom of the card stock to cover the size of the envelope. I glued the two sides together.
3) At the top of the card stock extending above the envelope pocket – I folded the corners in to create the “V” shape you see above like a typical envelope. (I preferred that look as opposed to a straight edge.)
4) Next, because I wanted a sort of Asian inspired look due to my theme, I wrapped the envelope in a green ribbon and glued on orchids to the outside.
And, then I hand delivered them to each one.
Just a fun, little way to start our weekend together.
Stay tuned for more Staycation fun.
Happy Decorating!
Sheri, you are amazingly creative!