Last year I planned a St Patrick's Day dinner, so this year I'm helping my friend Aimee host a blowout bash for St Patrick's Day. Since St. Patti's is on Monday, the party will take place the Saturday before. I'll be discussing lots of festive ideas all week, so feel free to adapt them to suit your own hostess needs.

Let's get started with the invite. Aimee needed something that was simple to make and easy to send to a lot of people, so we went with a postcard invite. To see how I made it, read more.

To make an invite similar to the one seen here you will need the following supplies:

• green cardstock
• green paper
• glue
• scissors
• St Patrick's Day themed ribbon
• green shamrock stickers or cut outs
• computer and printer

To assemble the invite:

1. Start by creating a new document on Microsoft Word. Write out the details of the party and center to the left hand side — as far left as you can, extending the margin — on the upper half of the page. On mine I wrote a fun message in the font Skia:
   

   St. Patrick's Day is almost here
   Let’s celebrate by drinking lots of green beer!

   Saturday, March 15, 2008
   Aimee’s House, San Francisco
   9:00 PM

   Let us know if you can make it,
   The more the merrier!
   415.333.2234

   Those not wearing green will be pinched!

   Print out the text on a plain piece of paper. Check for spelling and grammar mistakes. Once satisfied with the text, print out on the green paper.



2. Cut down to size and glue to the green cardstock. Cut the green cardstock down to size leaving a small border around the green paper.



3. Flip the cardstock over and glue the shamrocks to the back.



4. Flip the invite back over and glue a small piece of ribbon vertically down the middle, separating the text from where you will write the addresses. Write out the addresses.



5. Before sending be sure to bring a completed sample invite to the post office to see how much the postage is.