How to Make a Custom SpongeBob SquarePants Invitation {with Free Printable}
My son is turning 6 on Sunday and he has requested a birthday party, with friends this year, and he wants it at the gymnastics center…and SpongeBob SquarePants themed. And, since he has me wrapped around his little finger, he is getting exactly what he wants.
Now, usually he requests a theme and we just have family over and I’m scrambling at the last minute just to get my house clean, so I just buy all the invitations and decorations at the party store and I’m done. However, after my success at my sister’s Oh! The Places You’ll Go Inspired baby shower last year I decided that I could get a little creative with the party. I’m going to be sharing as we prepare all the pieces and of course the full party after the fact, but I wanted to start with the invitation and help you out a little with a free printable!
The first thing I want to do is teach you how to make this on your own with my favorite editing site – Ribbet.com. That link has no referral code and I don’t make anything if you click it and use it so go ahead and open it in a new window and let’s get started. Also, I know that a ton of people are going to say that I should use PicMonkey and I do sometimes, but I feel more comfortable with Ribbet sometimes. You can use either, really.
Step 1 – Create a blank canvas
On the front page of the Editor in Ribbet, there is a button that says Blank Canvas. Click that button and you will get this pop-up window that asks you what size and color you would like. If you notice, there is a Custom button and you can find many different sizes (in inches) under that drop down menu. I started to choose 8 x 5.5 because that would be half a page on a printer, but then I realized that I needed some white space around the invitation so it wouldn’t bleed off the page. The pixels for 8 x 5.5 was 2550 x 1650 so I just decided to take 50 pixels off each and I created an image that was 2500 x 1600 so that I could print two on a page. Next, I needed a SpongeBob color background so I used CSS color #FFF52B which I felt like was the closest to his bright yellow as I could get. Once I had all that set, I clicked OK and had my background.
Step 2 – Add dots to your SpongeBob background
I wanted my full background to have dots just like SpongeBob so I went over to Stickers and found the Ellipse shape under Basic Geometric shapes. Just find the shape you want and click it and it will appear as a black shape on your canvas. SpongeBob’s dots have a shadowy look so I used CSS color #C2AB00 for the dots.
Step 3 – Make duplicate dots to fill the page
If you know SpongeBob like I do, you know that he has lots of holes, big and small, so you’ll want to fill the page with these dots. Just right click on the dots and highlight Duplicate Ellipse to make more so you don’t have to change the color of the ellipse each time. Size them however you would like and make sure to keep them random with larger and smaller dots all over.
Free Printable
Just click the image above and right click to save to your own computer so you can print at home (or take it to your local office store so they can print it, like I did).
Step 4 – Add SpongeBob to your invitation
Search the internet or upload your own favorite picture of SpongeBob to Ribbet to add him to your invitation. If you notice at the bottom of your Ribbet screen, there is a Photo Basket and that contains the last 100 uploads you have added to your Ribbet account. Click on your SpongeBob image and drag it to the invitation. Stretch or size it however you would like.
Here’s the image that I used to add to my invitation. Click on it and right click to save it to your computer if you want to use it as well. Remember, I’m going to give you a free printable at the end of this of the full invitation, so don’t get overwhelmed on me just yet.
Step 5 – Add text to your invitation
I used the Lucky Guy font to add You’re Invited and the other text on the invitation. I also just used black font so it would show up well, but feel free to adjust the colors or fonts to fit your style. Oh, and you can totally click on that invitation above and right click to save it to your computer, print, fill in the details, and then your invitation is done!
Free Printable
So, I thought maybe you would like it with just the You’re Invited part and you could fill in the rest or save it to your desktop, upload it to Ribbet.com and add your own text. You can click on that image above for the full invitation, then just right click and save and you’re ready to invite people to your SpongeBob party.
Stay tuned later in the week and I have water bottle labels with more Free Printables as well!
Have fun!
That’s super cute! I still can’t believe he’s already turning 6!